tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76759566577683524912024-03-13T13:04:53.030-07:00Digital Marketing eBulletinAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-16944640372175252322017-10-10T09:47:00.002-07:002017-10-20T07:38:47.182-07:0015 of the Best Free Google Tools Digital Marketers Should Be Using<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V4-5sDT0urI/Wdz4URDAbbI/AAAAAAAADA8/bvQ95JlWx80qbNqdLr0jup9S22PA-Nm2wCLcBGAs/s1600/Matt%2BRoyse%2Bphoto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V4-5sDT0urI/Wdz4URDAbbI/AAAAAAAADA8/bvQ95JlWx80qbNqdLr0jup9S22PA-Nm2wCLcBGAs/s1600/Matt%2BRoyse%2Bphoto.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">By Matt Royse</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Director, Marketing Communications</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Forsythe Technology</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google is more than just the most popular search engine.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In addition to searching Google for what you need, Google has tons of products and offers a lot of tools.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">If you are a digital marketer, Google is a highly valuable resource. A lot of Google tools are free where you can access them with just one login or account.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As a marketer, you should take advantage of free Google tools to improve your digital marketing efforts and take your efforts to the next level.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There a lot of ways you can use Google to boost your digital marketing performance. Maybe you have used a couple of these tools but there a lot of them you may not be aware of.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Whether you are trying to improve your website performance, find a new digital marketing job, increase your conversion rates, tweak your user experience on desktop and/or mobile, manage your personal brand and your organization’s brand, learn more about your clients and prospects, create content based on trending keywords, prevent spam and abuse on your website, Google has a lot of tools to help you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Here are 15 hand-picked Google tools that all digital marketers should be using. These are some of the best tools that Google offers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>1. Google Page Speed</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google Page Speed is a helpful tool to make sure your web pages are fast on all devices, either on desktop or mobile. Just enter your URL of your websites, Google analyzes it and you get action items for desktop and mobile versions of your websites.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It will give you recommendations about possible optimizations and optimizations that you already have made. It will give you a score and rating for mobile and desktop.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Once you see your score, you can see what categories you need to improve. Once you get a baseline of where you stand, you know where you need to concentrate on. Learn how to achieve a 100 out of 100.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>2. Google Mobile-Friendly Test</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">More and more people are accessing the web on their mobile devices so designing your website(s) so it is mobile optimized is important for a great user experience on the diverse types of mobile devices.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This tool can show you how a visitor uses your webpages on a mobile device. You enter your URL and see how your page scores. Learn how to use mobile optimization as a competitive advantage.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>3. Google AdWords</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google AdWords is pay-per-click (PPC) digital marketing for your brand. When people search for answers, your ads will show and you only pay when they click on your ad. There are options for display ads, YouTube video ads, text-based search ads or in-app mobile ads.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When you link Google AdWords to Google Analytics, you are able to see ad and site performance in Google Analytics, take advantage of enhanced Google remarketing capabilities and get richer data in Google Analytics.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">With Google AdWords, you can test your ads and message to find out what is working and what is not working so you can make changes to see if they work better. Make sure you take advantage of these 4 actionable Google AdWords tips.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>4. Google AdWords Keyword Planner</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">With Google AdWords Keyword Planner, you stay on top of keyword trends to refine your Google AdWords campaigns and make sure your content matches relevant keywords.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In this planner, you can discover new keywords, conduct keyword research and choose better keywords.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google AdWords Keyword Planner helps you see how often keywords are searched, how the volume changes over time and how competitive keywords are so you can pick keywords that are less competitive so you can rank higher. Learn how to use Google AdWords Keyword Planner.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>5. Google Analytics</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google Analytics provides your brand with the digital analytics tools so you can track, report and analyze website traffic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This data will help you better understand your clients and prospects and provide a better user experience, produce better content and produce strong results from all digital touchpoints.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google Analytics can help you focus your marketing efforts on your most profitable marketing channels. Find out the 10 reasons you should use Google Analytics.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>6. Google Search Console</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google Search Console, formerly known as Google Webmaster Central and Google Webmaster Tools, helps you monitor website performance in the Google search index.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google Search Console provides you with a collection of tools and resources such as which pages on your websites are the most popular, you can find and fix website errors, build and submit a sitemap and create a robots.txt file.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google Search Console is useful in finding out information such as how many people are visiting your website and how they are finding it and whether more people are visiting your websites via mobile or desktop. Learn the three ways you can use search query data in Google Search Console.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>7. Google Trends</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google Trends helps you see the latest trends, data, and visualizations. It shows you how often a search term is entered in Google to the search volume in your country or various regions of the world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You can find out what is trending in your country or near you. You can explore topics and see how keywords compare to each other. And you can see how keywords develop in popularity over time. Learn how to use Google Trends for search engine optimization (SEO).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>8. Google TAG Manager</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google Tag Manager helps digital marketers and outside agencies make tag management simple and easy. It helps you place, update and manage code snippets or tags in one place and integrates into existing systems.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google Tag Manager can help you speed up the development of your website by deploying code/tags quickly without relying on a developer, make code/tag updates easily, work with outside agencies by using one account to manage multiple codes/tags, and cut and paste multiple tags on a single website. Find out the 10 reasons you start using Google Tag Manager.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>9. Google Forms</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Like SurveyMonkey, Google Forms can help you easily create and analyze surveys for free. With Google Forms, you can use your own photo or logo, choose the look and feel, including picking curated themes so you can set the tone of your surveys that match your branding guidelines and style guide.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google Forms provides you with questions options such as multiple choice or drop-downs. You can add images and YouTube videos and show questions based on answers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google Forms provides real-time responses and charts. You can data with you by viewing it in Google Sheets. Discover five reasons why you should Google Forms.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>10. Google reCAPTCHA</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">reCAPTCHA protects your website from spam and abuse while letting real people pass quickly without being annoying of typing in a word or figuring out what an image is. As Google says: reCAPTCHA is “tough on bots but easy on humans.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ReCAPTCHA uses its advanced risk analysis engine to stay ahead of spam and abuse fighting trends and keep automated software from engaging in abusive activities on your websites. According to Google reCAPTCHA website, the advantage is its advanced security, ease of use and creates value. Find out how Google can tell if you are not a robot with just one click.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>11. Google My Business</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google My Business is a tool for businesses and organizations to manage their online presence in Google, including Google Search and Google Maps. By verifying and editing your business information, you can ensure your listing appears right and attract the right customers. You can add photos of your business and office locations, update the hours you are open and respond to reviews.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google My Business is important in boosting your search visibility, showing up in local search results and making sure Google has your correct information about your business and your different office or retail locations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google My Business is critical to setting up locations extensions in Google AdWords. Location extensions in Google AdWords show your address, provides a map to your location and provides the distance to your local business.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Learn why Google My Business is so important for local SEO and how to optimize your Google My Business listings.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>12. Google Alerts</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google Alerts provide you with email updates on the latest and relevant Google search engine results on a topic you care about. It monitors web pages, media articles, blogs and even scientific research. Basically, anything that is on the web.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Depending on your needs, you can choose between “only the best results” or “everything” and how often you want to get the emails (daily or weekly). It is helpful to find out what is being said online about your personal brand, your company’s brand and your company’s products and services.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google Alerts is a wonderful way to keep track of trends, interesting topics and anything that is new on the web. Learn the five reasons you should be using Google Alerts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>13. Google for Jobs</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Searching for the right job can take time. It is a full-time job to find a good full-time job. Keeping up-to-date with the latest jobs can be challenging. Now you can stay in the loop on jobs near you with a simple Google search.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Just search “[type of job” near me” in Google and you will find something like this on your mobile device:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">If you type of “marketing jobs near me” on your desktop, you get something this:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google is working with organizations such as LinkedIn, Monster, CareerBuilder, Glassdoor and Facebook to provide you with a comprehensive listing of jobs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google is also publishing open documentation for all jobs providers, from third-party platforms to direct employers on how to make their job openings more discoverable in Google Search with this new tool. Companies just need to add structure data to the job posting web pages. Learn how to use Google for Jobs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>14. YouTube Trends Dashboard</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">YouTube Trends Dashboard helps you tap into YouTube and see what is trending such as the latest music videos, movie trailers, and comedy clips.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">With YouTube Trends Dashboard, You can find out what is trending today and what is trending this week. It also highlights a YouTube creator on the rise. If you haven’t already, you should create YouTube channel for you or your brand.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>15. Google Chrome</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google Chrome is a fast, free web browser for your desktop computer or mobile device.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What is nice about Chrome is it supports a wide variety of extensions such as Hootlet, Grammarly, StumbleUpon, Google Page Analytics, and Moz Rank to name a few. You may want to check out these 41 Chrome Extensions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>To learn more, please visit: <a href="https://knowledgeenthusiast.com/2017/08/21/15-best-free-google-tools-digital-marketers-should-be-using/">https://knowledgeenthusiast.com/2017/08/21/15-best-free-google-tools-digital-marketers-should-be-using/</a></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Matthew Royse is the director of marketing communications for Forsythe Technology, one of the largest independent IT integrators in North America. He has more than 15 years of experience in marketing and communications, working in many different industries, including financial services, technology, media and entertainment.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>At Forsythe Technology, Matthew oversees all content marketing and social media initiatives internally and externally, across multiple platforms and formats to drive sales, engagement, retention, leads and positive behavior with clients, partners, analysts and employees.</i></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-47880913658172339742017-10-05T08:17:00.004-07:002017-10-16T06:03:36.499-07:00From Data, to Stories, with Love<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lB6HnC8dLzA/WdZLXlzZ7YI/AAAAAAAADAI/hzECYh5gIc8Dcikq_IDOGegiBAdDv25qwCLcBGAs/s1600/Debleena%2Bphoto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="450" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lB6HnC8dLzA/WdZLXlzZ7YI/AAAAAAAADAI/hzECYh5gIc8Dcikq_IDOGegiBAdDv25qwCLcBGAs/s200/Debleena%2Bphoto.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">By Debleena Majumdar</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Co-Founder</i><br />Kahaniyah, Corporate and Educational Institutes </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“Maybe stories are just data with a soul.” said Brené Brown. Do you agree?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The year was 1854. London had been reeling under the outbreak of
cholera and Doctor Charles Snow was one of the tireless doctors treating
an endless stream of patients even as he found himself asking questions
about the real reason behind the spread of the disease. His hypothesis
was that cholera could spread through contaminated water. The common
perception at that time was the cholera spread through air. But as Dr.
Snow mapped out cases of cholera on the map of London (each black dot in
the chart below is an incident of cholera in what is believed to be an
early usage of a histogram on a map), he found the cases converging
around one street, Broad Street. Investigations showed that that street
indeed had a septic water tank which led to a large outbreak. One single
chart conveyed what years of research had been trying to.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hyOUd4EW1kg/Wd5OwWUwXkI/AAAAAAAADBk/OfkZsb8TfxQqwo9K_WW1ixco-E8RjvDOgCLcBGAs/s1600/001_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="377" data-original-width="399" height="302" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hyOUd4EW1kg/Wd5OwWUwXkI/AAAAAAAADBk/OfkZsb8TfxQqwo9K_WW1ixco-E8RjvDOgCLcBGAs/s320/001_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Was it data or was it a story?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>The drama of data:</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Many of us in the world of Analytics got introduced to the concept of data storytelling with this powerful video on population growth and climate change by Hans Rosling:</span><br />
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<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="753" height="302" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xHbMRSONdYQ/WdZL3qHk2MI/AAAAAAAADAQ/Gw9B0uHU1-Ms4WEPLiXtY1xvp1g6cYkmgCLcBGAs/s400/002.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Using rapidly shifting bubble charts, he tells a powerful data story. A text-book introduction to the power of visualization of data. So much so that a lot of people now talk of data stories as just visualization. But can visualization alone tell the story?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My hypothesis - Hans Rosling and Charles Snow not only used data and visualization, but actually used stories that lie lurking beneath the data to get to that powerful visual. The visual was the output but without the story it had no insight. So can stories uncover insights?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Let’s look at at two examples to understand the journey from data to story-based insights more clearly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Spotlight on Spotify:</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>The data: </b>Spotify kicked off its largest-ever global campaign with a major, data-driven outdoor push in which it bade goodbye to 2016 with the sign-off, "Thanks 2016, it's been weird." Rolled out across more than 10 markets, it used hyperlocal data to create messages which are personalized and rang true with what people felt and listened, when the the world around them kept showing more signs of weirdness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>The story based insight: </b>Spotify CMO, Seth Farbman, is reported to have said that the idea for this data-driven campaign originated with 2015's end-of-year "Year in Music" campaign, as data from listeners in different geographical areas provided some interesting insights. "That led to the idea of reflecting culture via listener behaviour."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"There has been some debate about whether big data is muting creativity in marketing, but we have turned that on its head," he added. "For us, data inspires and gives an insight into the emotion that people are expressing."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>The result:</b> With the campaign rolled out in November 2016, the real results will only be measured later. From early reviews, most people loved the creativity and the humor displayed in the ads. But there were a few questions around the moral code of data stories and concerns as to whether the personal data that the customers trusted Spotify with when they signed up was compromised in any way in developing ads like this.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>No words to say the Last Words:</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>The data: </b>Indian Association of Palliative Care (IAPC) wanted to raise awareness about the lack of palliative (end-of-life) care that patients receive, robbing them, often, of dignity, at death. According to their studies, only one in 100 patients get access to any sort of palliative care with the result that most last words are heard, not by family, but by nurses. They had conducted interviews with over 200 retired and working nurses across India and had data and facts on this issue.</span><br />
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<a href="https://youtu.be/JzT6IRx_okk" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="751" height="226" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-byVhYGYxTLE/WdZMcPa_AFI/AAAAAAAADAY/pEBAznp7g_Yql2yXbFbIWIlPoa014i-BgCLcBGAs/s400/004.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>The story based insight: </b>For Praful Akali, Founder & Managing Director of Medulla Healthcare Communications, the agency which conceptualized and created the awareness campaign for IAPC, the data was disturbing. It was a story that needed to be told to raise awareness about the importance of palliative care. But the true insight came from the words the nurses spoke, the real stories behind the data. And that insight led team Medulla to create the video #last words – the last words of dying patients, which were meant for family members, but instead, often heard by nurses and medical staff, when they passed away. Palliative care aims to change this type of end-of-life care, as the video describes, giving patients “every possible comfort during their last days, including letting them spend time with loved ones.” Imagine if Medulla just created an infographic that charted out all the data. Would it tell the story, so powerfully? They went beyond the data to the story to get the real insights.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>The result: </b>Not only has the video gone viral, sparking over 100 million conversations on social media while sending a powerful message on end-of-life care; at the Cannes Lions 2016, Medulla was awarded as the Healthcare Agency of the Year with "Last Words" bagging two gold medals. No wonder then that in Brand Equity’s “Best & Bekaar Advertising of 2016” it topped the list of Best Ads of 2016. For a small firm with limited budget that works in the area of Healthcare Advertising, which is not supposed to lend itself to very creative marketing, the results speak volumes about the power of the story based insight.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Not just in marketing but across all business functions; stories have the power to lead the journey from data to insights. And just like any narrative story arc, the insights-based-story too needs to have all the elements of a good story - the character, the conflict, the resolution and the authentic voice of the storyteller. Only then can insights shine.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic,” Stalin is supposed to have said. Whether we are talking about life, death or music or cola, as data storytellers, we owe it to our data, and to ourselves, to tell the right stories - which use data correctly, convey the right insight and hopefully, drive decisions and change.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Would love to hear your stories.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>I use storytelling to improve business and learning outcomes through workshops and projects. If you are looking to improve your teams’ understanding of your vision, trying to implement your data-driven strategy or just trying to enhance the way you listen to or sell to your customers, email me at debleena.majumdar@gmail.com to see how storytelling can sharpen your results.</i></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-21950113856564316482017-10-03T06:48:00.002-07:002017-10-11T10:04:25.644-07:00Change Agent: Scaling Account Based Marketing in a 21st Century<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gdCj6ggqINQ/Wd5KgFI82jI/AAAAAAAADBU/utR_aElCLiUbVDrbonyDyQLVOT_9u2WIQCLcBGAs/s1600/Matt%2BPreschern%2Bphoto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="450" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gdCj6ggqINQ/Wd5KgFI82jI/AAAAAAAADBU/utR_aElCLiUbVDrbonyDyQLVOT_9u2WIQCLcBGAs/s200/Matt%2BPreschern%2Bphoto.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Presented by: Matthew Preschern</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">HCL Technologies</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>SESSION ABSTRACT</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A company’s brand proposition and means of customer engagement have been transformed by the shift to digital, including the tremendous influx of data and a business environment that is mobile-first and always on. Customers expect personalized, experience-driven interactions for engagements that come at micro moments and require a brand to be nimble and active in encouraging next steps. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The key to using data to encode insights and deliver this level of customer experience can be found in account-based marketing. A well-conceptualized ABM plan when designed and executed in partnership with sales can be a strategic differentiat or and a trigger for exponential growth.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The true power of ABM lies in the programmatic choices, both in-person and in the digital space. Participants learned how the elements of an account based marketing approach can allow a powerful customer-to-brand connection and examined the ways in which account based marketing can bridge the analog and digital elements of marketing for a cohesive experience.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>KEY TAKE-AWAYS</b></span></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A framework for account-based marketing</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">An understanding of the elements of a successful ABM program, including customized customer experiences</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Insight on ABM as a means to trigger double-digit growth coupled with reinforced brand equity</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A guide for using the data collected to endear customers and drive brand awareness</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>OVERVIEW</b></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Client challenges: Message clutter, lack of personalization, lack of trust in other companies</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Marketing challenges: Micro moments, individual to individual, mobile first, connect emotionally, always on, multi-channel, experience driven</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The world is moving towards more personalization in the purchasing process</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Account Based Marketing: </b>Augment business traction and be a “strategic partner” to the client, enable, up-sell and cross-sell, infuse thought leadership, and create and leverage loyalty</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Key Question: </b>How do you arm your sales team with this account based marketing information? How do you get them to allow you to get involved when sales tries to “own” the account planning process?</span></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sales should own the execution of interaction with client, that’s a good thing</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Convince them to engage in a thoughtful manner while planning</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Accounts will grow if both are involved in the planning; however, relinquish power when it is time for the sales team to execute with the client</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>TAKE-AWAY</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>“Alice in Wonderland” lesson</b></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">If you don’t know where you are going, it doesn’t matter how fast you’re running – don’t deploy everything</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Utilize best marketing tactics in concerted effort, deploy some technology, research accounts, and take your time so you know you’re making the right decision</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Don’t waste time and money because you didn’t research accounts or clients fully</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>IMPLEMENTATION GUIDELINES</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>What to consider in account selection:</b></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Current competition landscape</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Account maturity – right engagement ecosystem of sales, delivery and marketing</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Do you have a coach or advocate in the account you are serving?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Business potential – wallet share versus potential wallet share</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What specific accounts are you going to target, and why should you go after those particular accounts?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Very strategic – who are the decision makers in the other companies?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Are you getting a large part of their wallet share – are they buying just one of your products-or more?</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>BEST PRACTICE</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Map marketing activities into three buckets</b></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Demand generation</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Brand awareness</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Thought leadership</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Determine tactics and information shared in order to “move down the funnel” </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Create a custom plan and utilize what works as you get more involved with a client</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Identify target accounts and prospects</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Identify digital channels –> optimize –> measure</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>ACTION ITEM</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>You need a framework for how you will act on each account:</b></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Client engagement framework</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Craft an account level campaign plan</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Measure and monitor</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Utilize both relevance charts as well as organizational charts</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Plot an ecosystem chart of key external influencers</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Create a RAG map for all stakeholders</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Craft a plan specifically to expand new/unknown decision makers and influencers</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You need to combine relationship map with account selection</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Very quantitative analysis -- you need to know hard numbers and revenuestreams to fully understand what share of the client’s wallet you are receiving (i.e. is there the potential for more?)</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>FINAL THOUGHT</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Move slowly at first, gain traction before diving “all in.”</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-27279601642744548182017-08-28T02:06:00.001-07:002017-08-28T09:45:04.777-07:00Seven Reasons an Omnichannel Strategy is Crucial for Your Business <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hDvZ_SOHLe4/WaPceqnUmfI/AAAAAAAAC64/ayFhlADc56IKyqWj2uEIFIZHb433PsWmQCLcBGAs/s1600/slakkamr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="361" data-original-width="315" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hDvZ_SOHLe4/WaPceqnUmfI/AAAAAAAAC64/ayFhlADc56IKyqWj2uEIFIZHb433PsWmQCLcBGAs/s200/slakkamr.jpg" width="173" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">By Spandana Lakkamraju</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Global Omnichannel Manager <br />Digital Marketing</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Cisco</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Omnichannel is possibly the most misused term these days. No matter how you describe it though, you probably have at least one aspect of omnichannel down. It is also worth noting that the digital and physical worlds are colliding. We all live and breathe it today. Half the time we live on the internet and the other half in the physical world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Information is at our fingertips today as it should be for us to keep progressing. So for the sake of this progression, we need to make brilliant transformations in marketing today. In order to deliver real transformation, it’s extremely important to make a true omnichannel strategy a part of your overall corporate marketing strategy. Here’s why:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>1. Revenue: A Seat at the Table</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Marketing is starting to take on bigger quotas and bookings goals. It’s evident that online research is where people start when they begin their buying journey. Omnichannel can help bridge the gap in terms of funnel conversion and aid in new avenues to generate revenue. Beyond that, if you are considering going direct with an e-commerce platform, having an omnichannel strategy with built-in, in-app notifications will significantly drive sales. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>2. Real-Time Optimization </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">How many of you are having conversations around goals right now? The company sets its annual targets, and you are asked to create a road map for the rest of the year. Where do you start? If you have an existing inbound practice, you can base it on your current run rate and reverse waterfall. How do we bridge the gap if the two numbers don’t match? You guessed it! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In an omnichannel world, you can go into specifics. If you set up ‘always-on’ campaigns, you’ll know on an average how many leads you can bring in a week or a month. On top of that, you can set up growth rates and optimization goals to drive real time results.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>3. Unified Goals and Cross-Team Collaboration </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">One of the best things about omnichannel,is that it gives the entire marketing organization unified goals. How many times have we set up a brand campaign with awareness goals and not been able to show conversions? In an organization focused on omnichannel, all teams work together to feed into each other’s goals. The customer journey becomes a relay match, the teams in the marketing organization work together to deliver a delightful customer experience.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>4. Better Messaging to Drive a Seamless Customer Experience</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As stated above, we live in a digital world. and our customers consume content in multiple places using multiple devices. So, we need to be sure our brand messaging is consistent across channels, and in real time. All organizations need a strategy to do so.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Omnichannel isn’t just about conveying the same message across all your channels. It’s about understanding the relevance of different platforms and presenting the right messages per channel. A blog post has no place on Instagram and a whitepaper has no place on Facebook. Take aspects of the whitepaper, however, and post an image of significant learnings from it on Instagram. Boom, instant conversions. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Omnichannel can be used to help get the story to flow from one channel to the next. It can help spread the right message, at the right time, in the right place to the relevant audience. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>5. Capturing Customer Pain Points and insights </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Customer experience goes beyond messaging; it also includes solving your customer’s pain points depending on where they are in their journey. In the omnichannel world, you’re not having multiple first date conversations with your customers, you’re honeymooning. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">By presenting messages that are relevant to where they move on the internet, you let customers know that you’re listening to their needs. It also gives you the ability to capture valuable customer data and insights.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As an omnichannel strategy requires multiple platforms to work together,it’s important to start making investments in tools that can work together but also build on each other. An integrated tech stack that’s essential for omnichannel delivers better ROI than fragmented tech investments. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>7. Allow For Innovation: Play By Your Own Rules</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Omnichannel allows for multiple opportunities to innovate and experiment. This is the most enticing reason to be part of an omnichannel organization, in my experience. Gamification of demos and experimenting with augmented and virtual reality and other interactive experiences are vital for creating customer moments that matter. Additionally, when proven successful, these innovations too can be scaled via an omnichannel plan across the board. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">To sum up, a well-planned and executed omnichannel strategy allows for revenue growth, real time optimization, unified goals and cross-team collaboration. It helps you address customer pain points and gain insights, improve ROI and also allows room for innovation. Omnichannel arms you to become a successful, trans formative marketing organization!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>As Global Omnichannel Manager, Digital Marketing, Cisco, Spandana Lakkamraju is responsible for driving an omnichannel strategy for key initiatives across Cisco’s business, and for scaling innovation such as “new digital experiences” created at Cisco. She partners with the BU, Brand, Content, Country/Regional, and other teams in the organization to establish coordination of message, touch points, and frequency across customer-facing channels. Previously, she was an Inbound and Revenue Marketing Specialist, Global Demand Center, for Cisco and a Technical Assistant for the Aerodynamics Department at NASA Ames Research Center.</i></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-25314280369866171842017-08-28T02:01:00.000-07:002017-08-30T09:45:48.188-07:00Sharpening Your Strategy for the Long Game <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">By Chris Moloney</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Chief Marketing Officer</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs), along with many other senior business leaders, exhaust a lot of energy discussing the critical importance of being strategy-driven. So, why do many leaders have difficulty creating enough time for strategic planning? We all know it is essential, but the magnetic forces within our companies are always pulling us toward more operational projects. I have found in my eleven years as a Chief Marketing Officer, that most organizations often stereotype the marketing role into advertising and communications production, with a campaign-centric approach. As a result, marketers must create a constant counter-balance to the daily pull toward tactics. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Chief Marketing Officer is largely responsible for driving growth and profitability. However, it is increasingly essential that we serve as the “voice of the customer” by maintaining a regular pulse on customer trends, needs and behaviors. When I first became a CMO, there was no concept of an iPhone. I can recall people saying that they would never make calls from their “iPod”, assuming the iPhone was just that… an iPod with a phone. Ten years later, iPhones and other smart devices have radically changed the way consumers interact with companies and each other.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The change is more radical than we could have imagined, but there were a few leading indicators that gave some hints along the way. A few years before the iPhone, the CIO of Scottrade and I gave a keynote on how “widgets” and “gadgets” were likely to overtake web pages and further discussed how we should prepare. Subsequently, widgets became the immediate precursor to all apps. Without our strategic planning, we would have been caught off guard. This is one of many trends that reminds us we must think long-term and build plans that offer flexibility. As leaders, we must pull the organization out of the day-to-day operational mindset and strive to define and refine strategy regularly based on technology or market changes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">How often do you think about where you want to be in three years? While a three-year view (or even more, a five-year plan) can seem outrageous, you’d better have one! The future is truly unpredictable, but a strategic framework allows you to evaluate numerous outcomes. Some of these outcomes may be close to the truth, but if they are not—you still have the core framework to rely on to keep you confident in your path.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As things change, revise the plan, but review it often and keep it a living and breathing document. Even consider creating visuals around the plan that you can post and share with all levels of the organization. Your team wants to know where you are heading and they need to be fully invested to help you get there. Partner with your CEO and others to enthusiastically share and MARKET the plan <i>internally</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">All too often in the media, stories about marketing focus on celebrating a winning campaign or marketing tactic that worked well. When reading articles about marketing successes such as a campaign that took off or a product that exploded in season, there is an implication that the marketing organization, ad agency, or leader “got lucky.” These stories often mislead one to believe a slot machine moment drove success. In fact, behind the scenes, marketers are typically studying customer attitudes, needs, and trends to re-define their customer benefits. The journey of how customers find us and what they experience along the way is a changing ecosystem and marketing must be at the center of sharing these insights. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When a company delivers on a big success, some doubt that the leaders had a vision. Luck is easier to fathom. But, in my experience, great marketing successes are either the result of a long-term vision or good fortune that occurs as the result of being at the right place, at the right time. Luck and strategy together are the perfect cocktail. That said, there are great products that fail because of bad marketing, but there are also bad products that fail <b>despite </b>great marketing. This is not to sound aloof or arrogant. Quite the contrary, marketers must embrace their role as the voice of the brand and realize how important it is to get their jobs right each day. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">After all, marketers are expected to keep the communications flowing, the ads running, the leads coming in, and other operational initiatives moving at a rapid pace. If we aren’t making our best effort to look forward with a long-term view of our customers’ needs, we are missing out on something very important.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Big and Small Companies Alike Struggle</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Often, I find the strategic planning process just as difficult in the large and well-funded organizations as it is for the medium to small organizations. In a large organization, there are immense resources and several people who weigh in on a long-term vision. However, each year it seems more like a budget planning exercise when the final strategy is delivered. In a small to medium-sized organization, marketers must be bolder, especially if they represent a challenger brand. The mission and vision must break through the clutter of those who might have deeper pockets, abundant resources, or a bigger brand. There are fewer “committees” and often a clearer understanding of the budget as “investment” versus “expense.” Those two words alone seem to be emblematic of whether a company thinks long-term versus short-term. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Marketing is at the Top</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Fundamentally, marketing is all things that make up our products, services and benefits—packaged together in a way that appeals to the overall marketplace. Marketing is a connection of who we are as a company and what we deliver to the overall marketplace. Stop thinking about marketing as a place where advertising is created. Stop thinking about marketing as a place where short-term goals, objectives, and quick wins are the benchmark for success. In today’s marketplace, the marketing leaders must look ahead and have a vision that is both inspirational and reasonably accurate. Chief marketers must execute the short-term strategy with a clear insight on how it affects the long-term strategy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Marketing is a wild mix of being fun, incredibly challenging, yet extremely rewarding when you get it right. It reminds me of the game of golf where you have that moment when you hit the ball and many things come together at once to make the shot. It is important to remember there were many missed shots before the good one. As marketers, we should think of ourselves in some ways as golfers. No matter how many times you do it and no matter how good you get, there’s always room to learn more, take more lessons, and think about your long-term objective whether that is to have fun, win, or hand over your expertise to the next generation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Chris Moloney is the Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Partnerships for TaxSlayer, a leading provider of tax and financial services tools to U.S. consumers and financial professionals. TaxSlayer has been ranked #1 by the National Association of Tax Professionals (NATP) for many years. TaxSlayer is headquartered in beautiful Augusta, Georgia - home of The Masters Tournament.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>His prior roles include roles at two digital leaders as Chief Marketing Officer of CAN Capital, Chief Executive Officer of Gremlin Social Media, and Chief Marketing Officer for three major brands (Wells Fargo Advisors, Experian, and Scottrade). Chris is a big believer in the power of marketing to drive business growth and his expertise lies in driving companies to be highly successful in their digital and social media presence with measurable results.</i></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-53421410257671421712017-08-18T07:41:00.002-07:002017-08-29T08:13:07.670-07:00Top 10 Things About Digital Strategy That You Are Still Missing Out On<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GL1XEph4wKk/WZb73Ev3dzI/AAAAAAAAC6Q/_irI-w5RzK0FWlxi3xmWipTrwKPAXupjACLcBGAs/s1600/Doyle-Buehler-Profile-square.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="370" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GL1XEph4wKk/WZb73Ev3dzI/AAAAAAAAC6Q/_irI-w5RzK0FWlxi3xmWipTrwKPAXupjACLcBGAs/s200/Doyle-Buehler-Profile-square.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">By Doyle Buehler</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Chief Executive Officer<br />Senior Smarty Pants</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Digital Delusion</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Defining your ‘why’ is actually about defining your digital strategy. Delivering your true value to your audience is the embodiment of your digital strategy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When push comes to shove, those businesses with a solid digital strategy are better able to weather any storm that comes, and better maximize and leverage the opportunities when they arise as well. Whether it is from economic or political factors or other external or even internal factors, if you are prepared and understand the roadmap that you are on, then it can be easier - not only during troubled times, but also during times that you can take advantage of.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The challenge? Most businesses don’t have an overall strategy, nor even a digital specific one, either. This leads many businesses to the SOS or, “shiny object syndrome” - trying to leverage the newest and flashiest sparkly thing that comes along, only to see it fade away within months of launch. This costs you and your business time, money and resources.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>So, what are the Top 10 things about digital strategy that you are probably missing out on?</b></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Develops your ‘why.’</b> If you don’t understand the ‘why’, do you think your customers will? Probably not. Not so much the “why you are doing this”, but also the “why do you provide value?</span>”</li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Gives you focus.</b> How hard is it to figure out what you need to do every day as it is? What if this was already taken care of for you?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Helps you understand your market. </b>Have you spent the time to actually fully comprehend who your customer is and what they want to become?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Creates improved competitive forces. </b>Yes, you get better, faster and more efficient if you are thinking long-term. What will your competitors think when you surpass them? </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Gives you and your staff and customers something to think about. </b>No, it’s not just about a single sales transaction. If it is, a strategy will not help you.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Prioritizes how to tackle projects. </b>Stuck with what to do, next? Having a strategy will help you clarify what is really important and what forms the essence of your business for projects to undertake.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Creates comparisons for debriefs and reviews. </b>If you have a strategy, you will actually be able to measure your success and failures.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Expands your market. </b>Now you can actually look at new projects, as well as entering new markets, as you can understand what resources are required to be effective.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Improves your customer base. </b>If your customer can understand the strategy or rather interpret it through your themes and values, then they can become a lifelong customer.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Provides direction on what is next. </b>Now you can decide when to launch a new product or improve your existing ones, and all with a better understanding of your customers and overall business value.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Digital is not an overnight success - it's the long game. It starts with planting your roots - your strategy. Only then can things really grow your business, otherwise you will eventually land out chasing your own tail - not being able to decide what to do, when, and more importantly, why.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Take what is best about your business, define your value, and create a compelling digital strategy that provides remarkable value to your perfect audience.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Easy, right? :)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What's your digital leadership quotient? Find out now: www.leadership.digital</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Doyle Buehler, MBA, is a best-selling author, global entrepreneur, international speaker and digital business thought leader, specializing in strategic digital branding and marketing. He has mentored, coached, trained and inspired many in the areas of startups, digital leadership, digital innovation, disruption, transformation, online marketing, social media and entrepreneurship. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Doyle runs a worldwide strategic digital marketing agency for companies who want to create disruption in their industry. At the intersection of innovation and strategic marketing, he is best known for effectively connecting business leaders to their entire digital ecosystem, to help them build a remarkable business online. Doyle is the author of the best-selling book on digital strategy and digital leadership: The Digital Delusion: How To Overcome The Misguidance and Misinformation Online.</i></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-80449335172495955162017-08-18T07:36:00.001-07:002017-08-30T01:00:32.728-07:00Seven Key Take-Aways from the 18th Annual Digital Marketing: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">By Adam Kahn</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Senior Director, Marketing Operations & Demand </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The <b>18th Annual Digital Marketing: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange</b> might have ended, but during my time at #FrostMar, I gathered seven key takeaways that marketers of all shapes and sizes will find useful.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The event took place in Nashville on July 17-19, where 150 marketing minds gathered to exchange ideas, build relationships and learn from leading organizations like RSA, GE Digital, TaxSlayer, Jet.com, Vanguard, MetLife and many others.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">If you missed this outstanding event, don’t worry – we’ve got you covered with our <a href="https://store.frost.com/events/chronicles/digital-marketing-july-17-19-2017-loews-vanderbilt-hotel-nashville-tn.html" target="_blank">Executive MindXchange Chronicles!</a> You can benefit from videos of the keynotes and focused session summaries of the entire event, including key ideas and takeaways, plus guidelines for implementing these strategies at your own organization. The Executive MindXchange Chronicles are the next best thing for those unable to attend and those looking for best practices in the industry.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Without further ado, here are my top takeaways from the event:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>1. Embrace Disruption for Growth</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The companies that are actually disrupting are the ones that are making successful strategic digital marketing decisions based upon critical digital strategies. This is where the disruption starts. It’s not about the technology. It is about rethinking how you assemble your team and formulate your core digital strategies that affect disruption.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It’s critical that we create a disruption strategy that includes 5 critical steps:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Define the Purpose</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Uncover Patterns</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Develop a Platform</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Create a Process</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Produce Results</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Once we develop a disruptive strategy, we’re on our way to redefining our future. Status quo is NOT sustainable in the age of disruption.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>2. Know Your Customer/Prospect Brain Types for More Effective Communication</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When you market to “brain types” you can bypass personalities. This key point simplifies a communication plan into four key brain types: Controller + Manager, Innovator + Influencer, Nurturer + Harmonizer and Analyzer + Systemizer. Once we understand the dominate brain type of the audience we are marketing to, we can properly frame the communication in these easy steps:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Identify your audience’s brain type</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Recognize what’s important to them</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Frame your message to get their attention</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Trigger emotion, use metaphor and story</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sell the end result or absence of it</span></li>
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<b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">3. Data Is Still King</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">With marketing technology’s dramatic growth, data continues to drive our customer insight, engagement and conversion. We’re now starting to see emerging areas like AI, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and IoT as additional tools and resources that will continue to help us, as marketers, generate higher quality leads, retain existing customers and enhance relationships thru visualization, predictive modeling and trend assessment via unprecedented volumes of data we now have access to.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>4. Quality Journalism Skills Are Imperative, but Challenging To Find</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">If Data is King, then Content is the Queen that drives community engagement. During the course of the event, we had countless conversations about content marketing strategy, campaigns and creation and I quickly recognized a theme – “marketers lack basic writing skills.” Much of the content creation tends to fall on young professionals who don’t possess proper journalism skills. Where do you find professionals who possess a strong editorial sensibility, as well as a solid foundation in journalism fundamentals? Regretfully, I wasn’t able to garner a specific answer, but the take-away is clear – when you interview prospective team members, don’t forget to ask for writing samples and review what they’ve posted online. Regretfully, strong writing skills are a necessity that many marketers do not possess.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>5. We Must Continually Transform to Survive</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As marketers, we want to be strategic, but tend to be reactionary. We must continually look for ways to improve engagement and transform our competencies to maximize efficiency and effectiveness for business growth. In order to transform our teams and organizations, we must be innovators, strategists and change agents. As Dave Sutton of TopRight stated, “To truly transform, marketing must get all 3S’s right: the right Story, the right Strategy, the right Systems, all measured through the lens of Simplicity, Clarity and Alignment.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As noted by Holly Rollo, CMO at RSA, “Your legacy is your team, not the situation.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We can no longer operate in silos and effectively meet the needs of our customers and prospects. We must define workflow, not org charts, to place sales and marketing in the same boat to best serve our customers. To be truly customer facing, we have to go big or go home, the Band-Aid must be ripped off. No one said it would be easy, but pain = progress. If we set group values for change and create mechanisms to listen to each other we will succeed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>7. ROR (Return On Relationships) is Amazing!</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Executive MindXchange is really an extraordinary event model. The main emphasis of the event is to establish meaningful relationships with like-minded professionals and that objective was executed flawlessly. Throughout the course of the event, I was able to meet, engage and establish industry relationships that will serve me throughout my marketing career. The variety of networking and social activities was organized in a fun, yet meaningful way. I couldn’t be happier with the outcome – meaningful professional relationships I leverage for best practices and lessoned learned!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Adam Kahn serves as Senior Director, Marketing Operations and Demand at Frost Sullivan. He is a passionate event and digital marketing professional who has worked in the events industry since 1994 for both higher education and for-profit event organizers, including: ZDEvents/Key3Media, iMark Communications, IIR, Diversified Communications and Rising Media. Adam has successfully launched and managed events throughout the United States, Canada and India during the course of his 20+ year career. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Personally, Adam enjoys spending time with his family. He loves coaching his daughter’s basketball team and attending as many of his son’s high school football and basketball games as possible. He loves sports and is a diehard Philadelphia Eagles and Boston Celtics fan. He was born and raised in Philadelphia and has been in Boston since attending graduate school at Northeastern University in 1995. If he’s not attending one of his kids sporting events, you can bet he’s trying to carve out time on the golf course. </i></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-57047564212621829722017-08-18T07:25:00.001-07:002017-08-22T06:43:08.818-07:00Highlights of Strategic Marketing Priorities: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">By Dan Colquhoun</span><br />
<i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Senior Vice President, Customer Research</i><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Frost & Sullivan</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>What is the impact of digital transformation on the marketing function? Will it be, indeed is it, disruptive? How will the role of the marketing officer evolve under these conditions, and what do we need to do to get ready? The 2017 <b>Strategic Marketing Priorities: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange,</b> held in Nashville, set out to answer these complex questions and more.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Allison Cerra, the Chief Marketing Officer for McAfee, opened the event with an engaging talk, <b><i>Own the Growth Agenda and You Own the Future,</i></b> that provided insights into her 20 year career in marketing and the lessons learned. Her career anecdotes were humorous and enlightening at the same time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Some important takeaways from Allison’s keynote:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Marketing is the most visible discipline in the C-suite, and hence the most exposed when the company misses its targets or objectives. Marketers live and die by the numbers and this became an oft repeated refrain for the remainder of the day as other marketers took to the stage to add their view of this purported reality</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There is often tension between sales and marketing and this is a sign of a healthy relationship. One way to ensure that the tension is helping the business is to regularly audit the quality of leads that marketing is generating</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Marketers must also speak openly and honestly with product management about the realities of the performance of their product portfolio</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Allison closed with the three Bs of measuring marketing value:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Brand: valuation or equity created; one must “weigh the pig”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Business: measuring what value marketing generated directly or influenced</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Brain: marketers should consume a constant diet of competitive intelligence, buyer preferences, and research</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Boardroom Brain Trust Panel: Aligning Corporate Growth Objectives with Strategic Marketing Priorities</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Three senior leaders in marketing moderated by a chief marketing officer took to the stage to discuss the role of marketing in what one panelist described as the “age of disruption.</span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">”</span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"> The panel started by referring back to the keynote with a quick straw poll to determine the panel’s stance on Allison Cerra’s prior assertion that marketers must “live and die by the numbers.” The panel was unanimous in their agreement with the statement, its applicability to the marketing function, and its specific relevance to senior marketing leadership.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The panel discussed the importance of collaboration in an organization, and how marketing is central to achieving high levels of organizational collaboration. Indeed, the panelists suggested that “marketers have the tools to be <i>in charge of collaboration.</i>” Some suggested that CMOs should be referred to as Chief Collaboration Officers to accurately reflect the importance of their position in spearheading collaboration.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>ThinkTank: Growing Revenue and Developing Brand Strategy in Whitespace and Adjacencies</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The audience was implored to consider the hedge fund as an appropriate financial metaphor for the marketing function. Both have profits and losses and both inherent risks attached.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The essential question for marketers, it was posited, is, “Where I should spend my next dollar for maximum effect?” The fundamental business model of generating revenue, earning margin (profit), and optimizing cash flow was overlaid with a marketing example that starts with deal generation, ultimately leading to deal expansion as customer confidence grows, and finally deal velocity as trust begins to develop, there by creating a loyal customer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>CMO Challenge</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Janet Brewer, Chief Marketing Officer at Tennessee Valley Authority, gave the Nashville audience a “big Tennessee welcome.” She opened with a celebration of sorts by suggesting that “this is [marketing’s] moment.” Brewer went on to describe the three roles for CMOs, the traditional commercialization role, the strategy development role, and the third as an enterprise wide profit and loss role.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Brewer implored marketers in the audience to “think beyond marketing as a CMO” and “step outside [those] boundaries.” Finally, skills that the modern marketer must master were enumerated: customer experience advocacy, strategic leadership, innovative influence, data driven analysis, and relevant messaging.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Dan is the Senior Vice President of the Customer Research Group at Frost & Sullivan. This global business unit of the analyst research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan provides market research services to the company’s broad-based clientele.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Dan has close to 30 years of experience in marketing research including leading the customized research group at Nielsen Canada for close to 10 years where he developed leading edge approaches to measure customer value, consumer needs, brand equity and assess advertising and marketing communications. Before joining Frost & Sullivan, Dan served as vice president of research at an international advertising agency supporting accounts such as GM, McDonald’s and Bell Canada with strategic consumer insights.</i></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-83517795386387234172017-05-16T09:58:00.003-07:002017-05-22T04:37:57.355-07:00A Frost & Sullivan Market Insight<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Digital Transformation Meets the Contact Center: </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>What Companies Need to Know to Survive in a Digital World</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">On the heels of the push to provide omnichannel customer care, we are witnessing an upsurge of business transformation unheard of five years ago. The focus is on growth, and in order to grow companies must embrace the change occurring in numerous technology segments. Amongst these are the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, artificial intelligence and machine learning, mobility and social networking. Enter Digital Transformation (DT); a confluence of technology advancements that drives changes in the consumer base, ignites rapid technology adoption, and opens the door to new business models. DT has the power to completely disrupt the way that goods and services are delivered. This onrush of change is challenging customer service and support organizations unlike anything that has preceded it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">After years of belt tightening and consolidation, companies have woken up to find themselves in a new competitive environment of disrupted business models. New technology and a changing more empowered and knowledgeable consumer base is pressuring companies to closely look at the way they transact business. For CEOs this new reality is to embrace digital transformation or die trying. This market insight will examine the changes that digital transformation is having on customer care, technology providers, and the steps that forward thinking companies need to take to fully embrace it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Digital Transformation and Customer Care </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Frost & Sullivan defines Digital Transformation as the strategy and execution of harnessing digital assets and information across an organization, bringing all areas of the business into alignment with the needs of all stakeholders, including employees, customers, prospects, suppliers, distributors and partners. It is as much a mindset as it is a change in technology and its use. This is an age where customer loyalty increasingly is in question. Nowadays, consumers associate the brand with the experience forcing companies to innovate on how they engage, nurture, and retain customers. It requires a new way of thinking and the sometimes destruction of the status quo to create new models of engagement. On a basic level this means understanding what a customer is really trying to achieve and make it easier for them todo so, but also anticipate what they might need beyond that. On an organizational level it means understanding how every touch-point can be used together to deliver faster and better results and deeper more engaging customer interactions. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">How does this apply to customer care? A comparison can be drawn organizationally between the evolutions that have been occurring within the contact center and digital assets across an organization. In essence, digital transformation is to digital channels the way omnichannel is to all channels. Omnichannel customer care evolved from the maturation of multichannel customer engagement, in which the biggest challenge was tying together disparate interaction channels and silos of data to support a seamless customer journey. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Digital transformation includes a broader perspective in order to:</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Improve customer and business experience </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Foster innovation within the business </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Add value to all stakeholders out of combined assets </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Create new experiences to foster deeper customer relationships </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Digital transformation and omnichannel delivery also share something else as well. The second biggest challenge with omnichannel is gaining cross organizational support to make it happen. Too often newer channels, such as web or social, aren’t initiated from within the contact center. Creating an omnichannel strategy therefore entails getting buy in, support, and skill set from different owners to ensure all channels can work in concert for seamless customer journeys. It also involves taking resulting data from those journeys to analyze and provide continuous feedback for improvement. The same goes for digital transformation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Digital Transformation is not easy and it can be uncomfortable. It involves understanding the needs of prospects and customers, as well as the needs of different customer segments. What are they trying to achieve? Are customers young and tech savvy, older generation digital immigrants trying to embrace change – or not? Or are they a mix of both? Consumers want to know who they are doing business with. They want to know where products are sourced from, who businesses are partnering with and what they bring to the party. In essence they want to know why they should do business with you. Understanding the different profiles and needs of customers is even more important as the population ages, grows more digitally savvy and uses digital assets to bridge work and nonwork time. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Frost & Sullivan’s 2015-2016 Megatrends series on “The Future of Work” shows that by 2025 Millennials (1981-2000) will comprise 48.3% of the workforce. Generation Z (2001-2015), who grew up as digital natives, will comprise 15% of the labor force. These populations work and play differently than prior generations. They are always on and socially aware. They blur the lines between work and non-work time, and increasingly are digital nomads - working from anywhere. Therefore, finding ways to connect with them as they move throughout their day is a crucial part of this transformation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Transformation of the Customer Experience Starts at the Top </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The rising base of post Baby Boomers (Millennials, Gen X, Y, Z, etc.) consumes technology and services faster than any prior generation in history. Unlike prior generations, they grew up surrounded by increasingly complex technology. The most eye-opening difference is the relationship that has developed between consumers and their devices. While Baby Boomers were amazed by punch cards and Cray computers, computing power and applications now can be found on any wrist, or in every pocket or purse. New ways of accessing and consuming information has become the norm. These newer consumers instantly research any question or issue, often from mobile devices, and tend to troubleshoot before seeking help. They also eagerly discuss their issues and findings on social networks. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">However, it’s not just Gen X, Y and Z that is changing. As customers of all generations have become more informed, they also have become less patient and demand quick resolution to their issues. They seek transparency from the enterprises they do business with, and demand to know more about the relevancy and value of what companies are offering. More than ever technology change and innovation needs to be delivered from the top down. The chief customer experience officer of 2014 needs to become the chief digital transformation officer, chief innovation officer or chief innovation strategist of 2016. Innovation not supported financially, culturally, and organizationally, by the top, is doomed to stagnate. Innovation and hence, digital transformation were top of mind in 2015. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">For instance, in KPMG’s CEO Outlook for 2015 Innovation was in the top five most critical challenges for CEOs, along with financial growth (30%), focus on operational excellence (27%), strengthening of brand (26%), expanding geographically (26%) and innovation (25%), and was again in the top five for strategic priorities in the next three years as well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">New Business Models Creation of transformational business models that use digital assets can have a huge impact on customer service. It requires cross organizational support to go beyond that of omnichannel to address unmet customer needs and create new customer experiences. While small changes can create new customer experiences, large changes can create disruptive business models that radically change the way a business service is offered. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">For instance, Uber and Lyft revolutionized transportation, creating an amazingly different Customer Experience than consumers were accustomed to. Both companies disrupted an ageold business model in the process. Airbnb has done the same for the hospitality industry. Selfdriving cars with full-service dashboards, including virtual assistant capabilities, show the promise of transforming the automotive industry. In each of these cases, the new models provide a radically different user experience than before by anticipating customer needs. They are engaging. They address consumer pain points, such as the need for ease and convenience. Moreover, in some cases they decrease costs to the consumer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Perhaps as interesting, is that the companies creating these applications have elevated consumers into the business model themselves with no start-up costs. Suddenly you or I could be a taxi driver or B&B owner, with no overhead and no education or experience. Market disruption, of course, is not without its downside. New models that lack regulation, can give unfair advantage to the disrupter. For instance, ride sharing app companies have skirted the city licensing requirements that taxis endure. These advantages can leave a traditional market caught unaware, driving companies out of a market. Despite this, DT within these markets is driving meteoric adoption unlike anything previously seen. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Summary </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Digital transformation is a journey, but one that companies need to embark on if they are to survive not just the onslaught of traditional competition, but new market entrants. It is also a necessary component in keeping pace with the rapidly changing consumer base. While there are too many developing technology components to delve into in this insight, the following areas should be on the radar of any company starting on the digital transformation path: </span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Movement to the Cloud. The benefits of moving applications and infrastructure to the cloud has been well documented, as it provides an easier path to eliminating data silos, and smoothing customer journeys </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT). Companies need to investigate the impact that device connectivity, cloud computing, and advanced analytics can have on changing the Customer Experience </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Security. Companies should keep abreast and plan for the ongoing security threats to digital assets </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Big Data. As explained in Frost & Sullivan’s recent market insight “The Contact Center is Rich with Data – Why Add More?” Big Data is moving beyond the realms of data projects and into enriching what companies know about customers </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Advanced Analytics. Companies are well advised to investigate how to make use of advancements in analytics. Understanding customer wants, needs, and behavior and predicting outcomes is key to owning the Customer Experience. Areas to investigate Digital Transformation Meets the Contact Center 6 include advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and speech and text analytics</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Virtual Assistants, Intelligent Personal Assistants and Robotic Process Automation. Customers prefer to self-serve before contacting a business. Embellishing self-service options from the growing ranks of digital personal assistants can help differentiate and transform customer interaction</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Mobility. Companies need to meet customers where they live and that is on mobile devices. Extending business access to the device of choice for the consumer is key in changing the Customer Experience and cementing brand loyalty</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Developing a holistic digital transformation strategy involves the blending of technology assets with a deep understanding of how consumers work and play. It involves not just the elimination of data silos to create seamless customer journeys, but in enriching those journeys. This can involve creating simply creating proactive rather than reactive customer interactions. Or it can go beyond to encompass data and interaction capabilities that hook in third party suppliers, partners or other participants to create entirely new Customer Experiences. Rethink service delivery. For instance, allowing a customer to place and order and click on a package tracking link to check on delivery is great. Providing video status of a car repair, or rewarding a customer of a concert ticket order with a free download of the artist’s song from a partner service, is better. Transforming the way a business thinks will transform the Customer Experience.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-90010013259087680292017-05-16T06:19:00.000-07:002017-05-18T07:19:14.927-07:00Transforming Digital through Account Based Marketing and Predictive Analytics<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mfrUJQnjzec/WRwUtTgJB8I/AAAAAAAACwA/ym-6t99Ly2sPgUAGLiTym_QY1EKQvxa9QCLcB/s1600/Kevan_Savage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mfrUJQnjzec/WRwUtTgJB8I/AAAAAAAACwA/ym-6t99Ly2sPgUAGLiTym_QY1EKQvxa9QCLcB/s1600/Kevan_Savage.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>By Kevan Savage</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Global Marketing Leader<br />Life Sciences Solutions Group</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ThermoFisher Scientific</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /><br />Marketing leaders continue to feel pressure to grow revenue through customer experiences across multichannel touchpoints, including digital commerce, social media, mobile, internal and field sales teams along with emerging channels such as IoT (Internet of Things).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">With significant advancements in digital platforms, vast internal and external data, increasing competition and customer expectations abounding, what is today’s marketer to do? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">No longer are the days of prospect information sitting in piles of paper notes or business cards, it’s all digitized across CRM, marketing automation and many other technologies. The best part? It’s all available for marketers who focus on increasing the precision and scale of their digital initiatives.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">One emerging yet validated strategy forcing both B2C and B2B digital transformation is the convergence of account based marketing and predictive analytics. The power of predictive analytics combined with the rigor of an account-based marketing approach can be a potent combination as detailed here:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><u>How Predictive Analytics Empowers Your Account Based Marketing</u></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>It accelerates in-depth customer understanding</b></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Identification of new accounts and pre-buying signals – including company size, industry and other factors for determining the best fit for your business</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Watch listing prospects, high value accounts, and competitors – like most companies, your CRM is full of companies, predictive models allows you to do this</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Modeling for new commercial opportunities and intelligent engagement</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>It extends account coverage with your selling teams</b></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Engaging key accounts digitally at scale with customized content</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Delivering “always on” pre and post-sale, cross sell, up sell, and retention campaigns</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Finding in market buyers—dropping people in your lap who are ready to talk</span></li>
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<b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">It ultimately leads to: </b><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Customers – Better predict what keeps them coming back or turns them away</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Websites and apps – Understand where and how to optimize and customize content for better conversion</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Clear Visibility to ROI - Predict the most effective allocation of marketing dollars</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Immediacy of insights to selling teams</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A steady flow of revenue protection campaigns</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A steady reliable flow of more mature, qualified opportunities</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Aligning sales and marketing around the accounts that matter most</span></li>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Adopting Predictive Account Based Marketing At Your Organization</span></u></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Prepare and Assess</b></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Assess your data management maturity – do you know what data sources are available to you? How are they structured? Can your digital platforms and teams easily access the data?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Assess your martech foundation – do you have marketing automation, testing, content and targeting platforms in place? Are you able to track and measure on and offline results from your marketing activities?</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Get Organizational Buy-In</b></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Identify a cross-functional team and establish goals - don’t underestimate the need for collaboration and alignment on the strategy. A strong alignment of sales and marketing is necessary for a team to grasp the full potential of predictive and account based marketing</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Empower your team members to identify high-impact marketing initiatives, set metrics to track business impact, secure any needed investments and include any stakeholders from product, legal or regulatory teams</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Identify your Target Accounts and/or contacts </b></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Don’t shoot in the dark. When setting up an effective account marketing and predictive analytics strategy, the first step is to identify who you are targeting </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Using all of the data and technology available to you, this will help prioritize high-value accounts based on revenue potential, which are in market, or as well as other key factors including market influence and purchase potential</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Understand your Targets</b></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Once you've identified your primary targets, you will need to find out more about them and what makes them tick. This can be achieved by investigating their internal structures, taking a closer look at elements including key decision makers and main influencers </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Once you're familiar with the core information relating to your target accounts, you will be able to segment them in the way you would a persona-based marketing strategy that allows you to reach multiple stakeholders</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">If existing assets are available, consider creating custom experiences to reach a broad audience without struggling to keep pace with content production</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Act </b></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Define and personalize your content - deploy your sales and marketing plays - A truly successful predictive account based campaign employs valuable content that places focus on crucial business challenges your target faces on a regular basis </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span>• <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Use dynamic content in emails</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span>• <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Use web personalization to increase campaign engagement</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span>• <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Leverage paid media to extend account targeting across the web</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Consider this, some organizations develop work streams for joint account planning, deal identification and management, opportunity mapping, experience delivery and stakeholder management through social-mobile channels</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><u>Measure and Optimize</u></b></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Create an operational scorecard - Monitor progress in real-time, evaluate program performance, enable marketing and sales performance management, along with campaign ROI</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Don’t underestimate development of use cases and successes, communication is key to continue fostering alignment and fueling investment!</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Maintain agility – consider developing an active optimization cadence, isolating variables and making strategic adjustments across sales and marketing teams</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Product, Sales and Marketing achieve efficiency, greater visibility into the nature of their customers, and are rewarded as an integrated team on customer satisfaction and growth </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Customers and prospects respond favorably to predictive account based marketing because they are served with information that is more personalized, timely, and relevant to their needs, and are therefore more likely to respond. Consider tying these initiatives into your NPS or CAS customer experience scorecards over time</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As marketers gain more experience with the methodology, and both predictive and account based technologies become even more advanced, additional opportunities will emerge for both B2C and B2B marketers. There is no silver bullet. Enjoy the journey and most importantly, have fun!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Kevan Savage is the Global Marketing Leader, Life Sciences Solutions Group, at ThermoFisher Scientific. In this role he is responsible for brand, creative services, digital marketing, marketing insights and planning.</i></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-78305046841941900412017-05-16T03:09:00.000-07:002017-05-17T02:18:52.243-07:00A Five Point Checklist to Optimize Your Content Marketing Strategy in 2017<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>By Patricia Jacoby</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Publications Editor</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">and</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Elisha Gist</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Marketing Program Manager</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Frost & Sullivan</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Creating compelling content that performs is an essential requirement for the modern marketing leader. Content marketing, or creating and providing useful content to customers with the end goal of a profitable return, will be most successful if you think through your team’s strategy first and adhere to the following checklist and best practices: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>#1: Target Your Best Prospects First </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The first best practice for effective content marketing is to identify and target your best prospects. This should include your best potential customers as well as your best current customers, as generally 80% of future revenue comes from 20% of existing customers. To identify your best prospects, create a customer persona, or semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer. Personas are based on market research and information about current customers. It’s also important to include demographics and behavior patterns as well as drivers and motivations when creating your customer persona. When putting together your content marketing strategy, focus on these two groups—your best current and best potential customers—first. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>#2: Consider Your Source</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When creating your content, consider the author and voice carefully. Make sure your content marketing comes from a credible, authoritative source. It is usually best to have an expert or analyst who can communicate from a vantage point of industry expertise. Ideally your content will also be derived from well-respected research in the marketplace. Accept the fact that perception can progress or hinder the message: content written by a vendor, about the vendor and delivered by that vendor, will be viewed as corporate collateral, not credible research. Utilizing a third-party who has evaluated your product or service or who is recognized in the industry is a great way to present outside validation of your brand’s value in the marketplace. This third-party content could be in the form of a video, white paper, customer case study or over a dozen formats you may choose as your content delivery vehicle.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>#3: Make Sure You Create Compelling, Customer-Centric Content</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Content is no longer just the written word. The vessel you choose to contain that content is equally as important. Infographics are liked and shared on social media three times more than other any other type of content, and companies using video enjoy 41% more web traffic from search than non-video users. Knowing these statistics, make sure your team’s content is customer-centric and deliver it in a format that will appeal to your target market. For instance, a mix of video, infographics and blogs will diversify your channels and can offer reuse or repurposing of older assets. Consider delivering traditional content such as whitepapers or executive interviews in snackable 30-90 second videos or digital eBooks: your buyers are going to look for these assets and you will capture and delight them with a more modern presentation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Content marketing should be leveraged to keep your visitors on your website longer and a balanced combination of content marketing formats can help visitors continue to engage. Consider your audience’s generation as well as their profession and title when selecting your marketing channels and content formats. A multichannel digital approach would be appropriate for some, while more traditional formats such as direct mail might work better for others. The goal of your content marketing is to give your customer the data, information or context they need. Ideally the stories you tell or the information you share will address your customer or potential customer’s pain points and help them solve a problem. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Utilizing the user personas you’ve developed for your ideal customer, share value added content that will resonate with your buyer. Position your company as a thought leader and only if relevant and additive, work in customer case stories which will provide prospects insights on your company’s client roster and your company’s success stories. Content can be proactive and reactive. Create a library of case studies by vertical to make that instant connection to your audience. Dedicate a section of your website to this content and label it appropriately ‘Customer Case Studies,’ ‘Our Work,’ ‘Success Stories.’ Embrace the idea of repurposing, reusing and recycling to create content that's both timely and lasting. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Learn to support your story with data: use surveys and brief Q&As to collect data and encourage engagement along the way. Be sure to link responses to internal sales and marketing channels by tying their answers to content or even products that match their needs. Finally, for account based marketing opportunities, consider leveraging your current or potential customer’s trigger events, such as a merger or new product in the marketplace and use those events to create relevant, targeted and timely content. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>#4: Distribution is Key </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When it comes to distributing your content, do so intelligently. Before any content is presented to your audience, make sure your team has a distribution plan and appropriate marketing mechanisms in place. Remember, the goal is to create useful content that brings in leads. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">For B2B content, consider distributing via LinkedIn and targeted industry websites and newsletters. For B2C content marketing, social media platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest and even Instagram are channels that should be explored and tested. A social media channel’s popularity can be largely generational, so having your customer personas mapped will help you identify the best social avenues to engage with prospects and customers. “A social media channel’s popularity can be largely generational, so having your customer personas mapped will help you identify the best social avenues to engage with prospects and customers.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Investigate avenues that are available to your organization for recycling, repurposing and reusing content: a digital newsletter can be a great way to repackage and extend the shelf life of content that might be buried on your website. For a content marketing campaign to succeed, it should be delivered in a mix of formats and channels to align to the myriad of different customer personas a company may be targeting. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>#5: Always Track, Measure and Drive </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Although it’s very important to track and measure your content marketing efforts, many marketing teams find this to be a significant challenge. Prior to launching any campaign, identify exactly what (and how) you are going to track and then begin measuring what is working—or not. You’ll begin to understand what channels and formats are delivering the results you crave— and you can kick the under performing channels (or formats) to the curb. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Once you have started your content marketing campaign, the first thing you’ll want to track is unique visits. These will provide a standard measure of how many people have viewed your content within a specified time frame. The next thing you’ll want to measure is page views. High page view and unique visitor metrics generally mean that your audience is very engaged and returning regularly to view your content. Another metric to capture is your conversion rate, specifically your micro conversions and macro conversions. A micro conversion is any activity that the user takes towards your primary conversion goal, such as filling out a lead capture form when downloading a white paper. These customers may not have purchased a product yet, but a measureable journey has begun. Macro conversions are any user completing your ultimate conversion goal. These conversion goals vary but generally are a user purchasing from your organization. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You’ll also begin to learn what other data you need to drive results: beyond user name, company name and title, what other data is necessary for you to qualify leads? Once you’ve started asking—and answering that question— you are ready to implement a lead scoring system so both marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and sales qualified leads (SQLs) have a clear destination through a lead nurturing program or even a first touch by the sales team. </span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-39731156366646215412017-05-16T03:06:00.002-07:002017-05-22T04:38:58.216-07:00Marketing in the Age of Video<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Q&A with</b><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Steven Leeds </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Senior Vice President of Marketing</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>By Patricia Jacoby</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Publications Editor</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Frost & Sullivan</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We are excited to announce that Steven Leeds will lead an interactive ThinkTank, <i>Video Marketing & Monetization </i>at the <b>18th Annual Digital Marketing: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange.</b> As an established marketer and trailblazer who has written viral videos viewed over 100 million times for Funny or Die and other clients, Leeds is uniquely qualified to discuss how to leverage this channel for maximum marketing return. Highlights of his work can be found here: <a href="https://sleeds.myportfolio.com/">https://sleeds.myportfolio.com/</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">At the event, Leeds will share best practices on how to determine your target demographic and identify the best social platform to reach them, discuss methods of video distribution and pinpoint how to measure success and tie ROI back to a campaign, among other important video marketing takeaways.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Leeds recently fielded a few key questions from Frost & Sullivan, providing a preview of his expertise:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>What would you describe as key factors in creating and producing a successful video? Is it digital marketing metrics, brand awareness, or some combination of the two?</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When creating videos, or any content for that matter, it is important to think about your target audience and work backwards from there. First, we think about who the customer is and where they are going to see the media. Then we determine how to shape the messaging based on those two things. For us, a direct marketer, success is always defined by sales. Views are great, but if it doesn’t lead to an uptick in sales or a trackable ROI, it doesn’t mean anything. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Influencers with big followings are able to monetize their audience by creating branded content for retailers and ecommerce companies. This can drive brand awareness and website/store traffic. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>As digital marketing evolves, videos marketing is evolving and growing too. What are some best practices you have learned as an early successful proponent of video marketing? </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In terms of best practices, make sure your messaging and production value are on point. Proper sound and lighting let the audience know that this is a brand that cares about the content they put out. (In other words, if it’s an amateur-ish looking video, don’t do it.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Key ways video marketing is different than traditional marketing? </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">With digital video, the sky is the limit. The day you stop paying for radio, newspaper or a television ad, that’s the day it stops running. When a brand is integrated into a video or creates their own YouTube content, those videos live forever. Every day and every click, drive the overall CPM costs further and further down.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>How to best use video to tell the brand story or communicate your organization’s value proposition?</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Create videos that will align with your brands value proposition and story for a long time to come. Other forms of media are better suited to capitalize on fades or trends. If you are going to put the time in to creating videos, you should make sure that they have the longest possible shelf life. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>There are a lot of statistics out there citing video marketing as having very high engagement levels and ROI. Do you believe this is accurate?</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Our experience with video marketing has been very effective. At the time, our TigerDirect subsidiary had two videos go viral with over 40 million hits and over 3 million dollars in trackable sales.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>It is probably only a matter of time before a large venerable organizationmakes its foray into video marketing and steps over the line, making a mistake that really harms the brand. Any guidelines you care to share with all the fearless marketers out there? </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Review your videos with different departments before you release anything that may even have the hint of being risky. Customer service and your sales teams deal with customers on a daily basis; they are a valuable resource when trying to understand your customers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Is social media still the best place to implement video marketing? </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Social media should be viewed as a distribution platform that should be used in conjunction with your website and email list. Utilizing these free forms of distribution is a great way to insure your video has the best chance to be seen. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Steven Leeds is Senior Vice President of Marketing for Systemax. He currently oversees the growth of Raw Materials and Building Supplies at their Global Industrial division. Steven joined Systemax in 2012, as Brand Manager and then Director of Marketing for their retail electronics subsidiaries; TigerDirect, CompUSA, and Circuit City. Prior to joining Systemax, Steven created and produced viral branding campaigns for private clients. With over 100 million views, his work has been featured on The O’Reilly Factor, Anderson Cooper, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and Funny or Die.</i></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-87491902976650559292017-05-16T02:57:00.000-07:002017-05-17T02:03:01.488-07:00Leveraging Digital Strategies to Address Your Industry’s Critical Dynamics<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>By Chris Edwards</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Chief Marketing and Experience Officer</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Conversa Health</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Something has been developing in healthcare. It is an industry that has been operating around insurance reimbursement codes, doctor schedules and regulations for decades. Yet, it had forgotten something along the way…the patient.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Can you imagine creating a category that does not have the customer at the center?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It’s a great reminder for marketers in all industry segments. The good news is that the shift is finally happening.The consumerization of healthcare has been one of the most exciting business evolutions of the last few years, and it is influencing the way the entire industry operates. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Consumers want easier access to health information, they demand a better experience and technology is enabling it. Are you and your team spending time thinking about digital strategies that address the dynamics of your industry and the customer’s role in it? At Conversa, we are focused on constantly creating ideas and innovative technology that show how we can better Care, Connect, and Cultivate customer relationships.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">For example:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The typical healthcare consumer visits their doctor’s office 2.7 times per year</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Once patients are there, the “personal encounter” lasts 14 minutes</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Between these visits are the real moments that matter for managing a patient’s health over time, yet very little to no interaction happens during this time</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This is the way the process has been for decades</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">How could the scenario above possibly create a meaningful relationship with a customer? It leaves a lot to be desired, and that’s why we have set out to create digital strategies and technology to make the relationship between care teams and their customers more meaningful. This focus led to us creating digital check ups which are clinically-intelligent, automated patient conversation experiences that are also patient profile–driven. This innovative technology enables the consumer and their care provider to have ongoing dialogue via text or the web with clinical context and relevance. In fact, many providers have referred to us as a “clinical artificial intelligence care navigator – well beyond ChatBots.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Aside from the obvious benefits of the customer-centric culture that marketers strive to achieve, a recent report from global research company Frost & Sullivan reinforces the rationale for our culture and technology focus, specifically in the healthcare sector:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Almost 69% of consumers in the US track their health symptoms</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">41% are sure that they will change their physicians if they are not allowed to access their health records</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">74% of patients appreciate receiving customized alerts and news feeds post care</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">89% of the US consumers surveyed believe that chronic condition management during care can also be improved with progressive patient engagement-related interventions, compelling 45% of providers to rank member engagement programs as one of the top healthcare objectives for this year</span></li>
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<b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">The Convergence of Technology, Customers and Healthcare</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In recent years, we have observed how technology can give people more control over their lives – smart homes, autonomous cars, etc. As consumers come to trust and rely on smart technology in almost every aspect of their lives, it becomes a natural progression to turn to digital monitoring for their healthcare as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">At Conversa Health, we are looking at how we can use these digital platforms to help consumers lead healthier, longer lives and facilitate communication with the doctors that assist them along the way. What if clinicians could receive a consumer’s information and provide live-time feedback on their health, allowing them to provide specific steps for action – without ever having to schedule an appointment?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The technology exists to allow people to be actively engaged in their own health, as opposed to passively reacting to a doctor’s diagnosis once a problem has already surfaced. Now, it is up to brands to deliver the technology to their consumers in a meaningful way – be that with CRM, an app, live-time diagnosing and /or doctor video conferences.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Listening. Learning. Leading.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">One way my team and I are enabling this transformation is by creating more consumer/patient advisory work sessions in order to spend time with our client’s customers. For any marketing team, I would recommend that you set up these types of sessions with industry influencers, as it allows you to effectively collaborate with leaders in your field and create innovative solutions that solve problems across the board. The work sessions also allow us to develop our technology faster and scale more efficiently for their needs. Furthermore, we can then share the output and results of these collaborations across the company so that these insights permeate the culture.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We are learning that consumers are becoming more receptive to viewing and sharing healthcare information, as they want to actively participate during, pre-, and post-care. Using technology creates opportunities for both the consumer and the provider to act faster in order to manage care between the visits. As such, our team is to focus on that customer engagement that results in valuable and value-driven conversations between doctors and patients.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The overarching goal is to bring patients back from the outskirts of healthcare and make them – and their health – the center. These customer-centric and user-generated data ideas are not new to many marketers and brands, but they are concepts the healthcare industry is just beginning to adopt. We see the value an ongoing dialogue with our customers in the form a smoother ‘customer journey’ – and, for us, that translates to improved customer satisfaction scores, more efficient prospecting, improved creative messaging for inbound and outbound communication, additional layers of insight for the CRM, more engaging patient experiences with the Brand and ideas for new downstream revenue-driving programs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We can’t afford to ignore the technology anymore, and marketers – with arsenals of digital tools and consumer data – are well-positioned to help lead the charge.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Chris is the Chief Marketing and Experience Officer at Conversa Health, the industry’s leading Conversation platform. Chris has been running global marketing and strategy for healthcare technology B2B and B2C companies for over 20 years. He has been a thought leader and industry speaker at many international digital health events over the last few years. He has a passion to put “Patient Experience” in the middle of healthcare, and can be followed on twitter @chrissedwards or @conversahealth</i></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-39697767799649482372017-03-14T06:27:00.000-07:002017-03-14T08:11:36.770-07:00The A to Z Guide to Digital Marketing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>By Matthew Royse</b><i> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Director, Marketing Communications</i><br />Forsythe Technology</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Whether you are just starting out or you understand the topic well, it is important to master the fundamentals. That is why I wrote the A to Z guide to content marketing and the A to Z guide to social media blog posts so people could better understand the fundamentals of content marketing and social media.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Now, the term digital marketing is being used everywhere. But what does digital marketing really mean? Digital marketing is an umbrella term for your online or digital marketing efforts. It is where companies use digital channels such as websites, Google search, social media, email and other digital channels to connect online with clients and prospects.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Here is Your A to Z Guide to Digital Marketing:</b><br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Automation</b><br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Marketing automation tools like Marketo, Hubspot, and Eloqua help automate, streamline and measure marketing tasks, actions, and workflows such as emails, social media and other website actions like landing pages.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Bots</b><br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">An Internet bot, also called a web robot, is a software application that performs an automated task over the Internet such as setting you an alarm, telling you the weather, or searching online. It is like ordering something via text and having it delivered to you without ever talking to a human. Bots are used on the Internet where the emulation of human activity is required such as a chatbot. For example, a simple question and answer exchange could occur online and it may seem like you are interacting with another person but it is simply a bot you are talking to. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Conversion</b><br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A conversion is where someone online responds to your call to action on your website, on your social media channels, on your application or on your landing pages. This metric does not necessarily indicate sales but rather that people are engaged and interested in your call to actions and what you have to say. <br /><br /><b>Data</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />How do you manage all of it? In today’s world, we are swimming in data ranging from website visit to personal customer data. A lot of people talk about the importance of big data, but small data is just as important. Whether it is big or small data, what you need as a digital marketer is the right data.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Email</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />Even with the growth of social media and content marketing, email is still one of the most effective ways to market digitally to your database of clients and prospects on a regular basis. Email has grown into a complex and sophisticated tool where 82 percent of consumers open emails from companies, according to Litmus. <br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Funnel</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />The purchase funnel is also referred to as customer funnel, the marketing funnel, the sales funnel or the conversion funnel. The funnel is a consumer-focused marketing model to illustrate the theoretical customer journey toward purchasing a product or service. With digital marketing, the traditional stages of the funnel have changed. What used to be a theoretical linear path from leads to converting those leads into customers, the path isnow a multi-faceted process that can start and stop in various parts of the funnel. The funnel has to come to a point where many are now re-thinking the digital funnel and to some people, the funnel has evolved into a digital ecosystem.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Goals</b><br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In order to measure your digital marketing performance, you need to set goals. Your goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time bound. Your goals should cover a range of different measures to help you set, review and manage your performance across all of your digital marketing activities. Goals should be something like: increase your organic search traffic year over year, increase your click through rate on social ads, improve your email open rates by 10 percent this quarter, or grow social shares by 5 percent this year.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Hook</b><br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Everything starts with a hook. A hook is a tease, a sample, and a mental appetizer to give your clients and prospects just enough to leave them wanting more so they take action on your digital marketing call to actions. Your hooks bring people to your website, get them to read your content, and encourage them to click on your call to actions. Withholding some information is a great hook because developing the hook doesn’t cost much. When people take the hook, they give you permission to follow up and market to them more. Some examples of hooks are coupons, contests, free downloads, and free consultations. <br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Interactive </b><br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Interactive content is like a survey, a calculator, or an interactive infographic that engages participants in an activity such as answering questions, making choices, and/or exploring scenarios. Overall, the interactive content provides the participants with some useful answers or results. Interactive content helps enhance the level of user experience on your website<br /><b> </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Jobs</b><br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Marketing is going through a transformation with the shift toward companies becoming digital businesses. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says employment in the marketing field is expected to rise 7 percent by 2024 and job security is strong because marketing is important to most companies bottom line. In today’s world, you have no choice but to get involved in the digital marketing if you want to continue to grow your career and be employable in the future. To have a job in digital marketing, professionals need to be agile, learn quickly, and be team-oriented.<br /> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Keyword research is an important aspect of any digital marketing or search engine optimization (SEO) campaign. Search engines help users find content based on links and keywords. To make your content easier to find with the users you want to attract, it is important to understand what SEO keywords you want to rank for in the search engines and put the keywords in the title, URL, and headings of your content. But be careful not to overuse keywords. That is called keyword stuffing. <br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Landing Page</b><br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A landing page is any website page that you create that is designed to get traffic from different sources and prompt users to take an action such as download something, sign up for something via email, or join something. <br /> </span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Metrics</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />“You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” the old management adage goes. In digital marketing, it is important to measure and track the performance of your marketing efforts. These metrics could include cost per lead per channel, conversion rates for sales or leads.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Native Advertising</b><br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Native advertising is an umbrella term to label advertisements that are content-led and are featured on a website alongside other non-paid editorial content in the form of an article or video. One of the best examples of native advertising is BuzzFeed. Others consider media advertising on social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram as native advertising. <br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Optimization </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />Optimization is the process of improving the marketing efforts of your company. In digital marketing, it is optimizing content, landing pages, emails, applications, web browsers, mobile devices, and ads to increase traffic, clicks, and conversions. Optimization has become required for successful digital marketers who want to reduce costs and increase sales. <br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Pay per click (PPC)</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />Pay per click is a model of digital marketing where advertisers pay a fee for a click. Each time an ad is clicked on it takes users to your specific landing page, and you are charged a specific rate per click. Pay per click is a way of buying visits to your websites instead of earning them organically with non-paid clicks. Search engine advertising or search engine marketing such as Google AdWords or Bing Ads is one of the most popular forms of pay per click.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Questions</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />The best digital marketing is where your digital presence is used to answer your client or potential client’s questions. When you use search using Google or Bing, you are looking for answers to a specific question. By answering questions about how your company can help people, search engines will serve up your content to people looking for answers to those questions.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Remarketing</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />Remarketing, also known as retargeting, is a form of digital advertising that uses a cookie-based technology to anonymously follow your audience around the web. The cookie then helps digital marketers target users through paid search and display ads as they go around to different websites. The effort can help you keep your company top of mind after leaving your website. Only 2 percent of web traffic converts on the first visit so remarketing is a tool to help companies reach users who don’t convert right away.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Strategy</b><br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Your digital marketing strategy is a series of actions based on your specific goals, targets, budget, and timeframe. In other words, a strategy is a plan of action to achieve your desired goals. One of your goals may be to generate 10 percent more traffic to your website this year compared to last year. According to Smart Insights, 46 percent of companies don’t have a defined digital marketing strategy. That is shocking since an effective digital marketing strategy will help you make the right decisions and make sure your company successful with digital marketing.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Team</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />The optimal structure of your digital marketing team varies from company to company but there are some common activities that need to be managed. That is why you need to have the right team with the right skill sets. It is important to hire specialists in specific areas with a broad understanding of the digital marketing landscape. <br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>User Experience</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />User experience (UX) is the feeling that a user takes away with him or her after an experience in a digital environment. UX is one the most important things for developing and executing a modern digital marketing strategy. User experience should be customized and include personalization. According to Experience Dynamics, 96 percent of smartphone users have encountered websites that weren’t designed for their mobile devices and if content is not properly optimized, 79 percent of users will leave the respective page and search for another website to help them..<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Visual</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />Content with relevant images gets 94 percent more views than content without relevant images, according to Kiss Metrics. People engage better with visual content. Visual content can be stand-alone images, videos, infographics, animated GIFs, and images in blog or articles. In fact, 35 percent of marketers selected visual assets as their most important content and 65 percent of senior marketing executives believed visual assetsis core to how their brand story was communicated.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Website</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />According to a recent survey, 52 percent of marketers surveyed expect to increase spending on their websites. Your websites reflects your brand and should offer high-quality content and should be easy to navigate. Not all website pages are created equal. Your home page should be the front door of your home, your content pages should tell your stories, and your landing pages should turn visitors into leads or get them to do more on your website. To take it a step further, there are two types of landing pages: click-through landing pages and lead generation landing pages. Your websites are one of the most critical parts of your digital marketing efforts because all of your other digital marketing activities should lead your users eventually back to your websites for conversion.<br /><b> </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>X-factor</b><br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A x-factor is a special quality, especially one that is essential for success and is difficult to describe. For example, the X factor in better content marketing is agile marketing. Companies and people need to be ready for x-factors that influence the success of their digital marketing efforts.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Yield</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />The word yield, as it relates to digital marketing, is giving up or surrendering the power to your buyers. It is not the word yield, as it relates to finance, where an investment yields a good return. In today’s world, more of the buying process is done online so it is critical you excel in digital marketing in both the B2B and B2C worlds. For example, 94 percent of B2Bbuyers research online for purchase decisions and 81 percent of shoppers/consumers conduct online research before making a purchase. Are your digital marketing efforts helping your current or potential buyers when they are researching?<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>ZigZag</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />Taking an approach that differs from everyone else can help you stand out. As Brian Clark from Copyblogger says: “When I see everyone doing something, I know it is time to do something else. In other words, when everyone is zigging, it’s time to zag.” Are you zagging when it comes to digital marketing?<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Now it is your turn, what would you add?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />What words did you like or not like in this A to Z guide? What would you add? What letters would you replace? What other popular digital marketing terms would you add to this list?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">To learn more, please visit: <a href="https://knowledgeenthusiast.com/2016/12/21/the-a-to-z-guide-to-digital-marketing/" target="_blank">https://knowledgeenthusiast.com/2016/12/21/the-a-to-z-guide-to-digital-marketing</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Matthew Royse is the Director of Marketing Communications for Forsythe Technology, one of the largest independent IT integrators in North America. He has more than 15 years of experience in marketing and communications, working in many different industries, including financial services, technology, media and entertainment.<br /><br />At Forsythe Technology, Matthew oversees all content marketing and social media initiatives internally and externally, across multiple platforms and formats to drive sales, engagement, retention, leads and positive behavior with clients, partners, analysts and employees. <br /><br />Matthew currently teaches a social media class for students in Duke's Event Development Certification program. He has spoken about social media and content marketing at numerous industry and regional events.<br /></i></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-3933014576113595182017-03-06T02:04:00.003-08:002017-03-08T05:32:07.369-08:00Top Three Ideas to Consider for Your 2017 Digital and Marketing Plan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>By Paramita Bhattacharya</b><br /><i>Director, Integrated Marketing </i><br />Hitachi Data Systems</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />Back in July, I attended Frost and Sullivan’s 17th annual Digital Marketing Conference as a member of their Digital Advisory Board and a thought leader. It was an exciting opportunity to participate in a small gathering of executives and marketing professionals from companies spanning technology, industry, manufacturing and financial services.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We spent two days tucked away in beautiful Asheville, amid the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina - exchanging ideas, insights, best practices and lessons learned around how best to lead marketing’s revolution in this digital transformation age.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As we came to the close of the event, and I sat on the panel to weigh in on the top takeaways in what turned out to be a very passionate and an interactive forum, I realized there were a few ideas that grabbed everyone’s attention more than others. It’s worthwhile to consider the implementation of the top few. <br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">For the last year or so, there has been a lot of buzz around <b>Customer Experience</b>. And very rightly so. To be able to orchestrate a meaningful and friction-less experience for your buyers is extremely valuable. The impactful ROI it generates is undeniable. Of course, what you create depends on your company’s business goals and marketing landscape and maturity, but here are a few thoughts, especially for those in the B2B space. </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Multi-Channel Digital Connection: </b>More and more buyers are starting their purchase journey digitally, even decision makers in traditional B2B. Having a presence on the digital channels is therefore critical, but what is more important is to begin a multi-channel connection and to rethink how to map that. How does your website page link to your digital ads? How does your SEO impact your PPC efforts? How does your social media advertising impact your digital advertising and account based marketing? And is it a single experience that connects all or is it a progressive one? </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Interestingly, what drives your success and results with this integrated journey with digital is that you can employ an iterative process. Launch quickly, expand and then optimize as early results pour in. That is in stark contrast from when a long lead-time of many months is spent just preparing to launch. An IBM case study presented at the conference demonstrated how they rolled out a global digital campaign and brought a new offering to the market place in just 45 days.</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Physical Channel Presence: </b>Don’t discard your physical channels. Now that you are investing and focusing a lot of your spend and time on digital, it becomes ever critical to continue to focus on targeted events, trade shows, round tables, live-seminars, and communities/user group meetings, where you continue to increase your customer and prospect engagement beyond and alongside digital – to help with your long purchase cycle of B2B. <br /> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Non-Traditional Channels:</b> Don’t be afraid to take a leaf out of the B2C world and break into non-traditional channels. Perhaps it’s a brand engagement with an entity that helps you expand your business storyline in an unique manner; a syndication opportunity with a publisher that can excite your customer base; a webcast series embedded with synergistic platforms providing a fresh perspective; and a thought leadership initiative at an industry level with peers, experts and analysts that can drive strategic conversations and build ongoing engagement. <br /> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Seamless Yet Tailored Experience:</b> Your buyers are reaching everywhere and are on devices that are always connected, always on, so how can your customer experience initiatives be limited or fragmented? Deliver consistent but relevant experiences across multiple platforms and devices including mobile, website, communities and social, but your success is dependent on how you tailor for device, message, design and interaction along with target audience consumption and behavior. </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Now, do we think that a B2B buyer goes on this journey in a linear fashion? Instead of thinking of this as a linear funnel, we need to evolve our <b>experience map into a multi-dimensional matrix</b> and most importantly target for group decision-making for B2B, which is often no less than five persons. <br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Creating a <b>breakthrough digital experience</b> requires plotting it like a story arc along with visual delights and language to evoke emotion, and then to spur your buyers to take action by solving their challenges, anywhere from cloud delivery issues to big data applications. It was not surprising therefore to hear Content Marketing still dominate so many conversations at the conference. Based on one of the Think Tank sessions around how to build fast, iterative and smart content here are a few key nuggets that you may consider implementing in your <b>Content Marketing</b> strategy.</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Personas and Themes:</b> Personas continue to carry weight and importance. But instead of trying to build perfect ones, develop open-ended personas as well as broad story lines and themes with available research, what you know of your customers and marry that with data culled from your various data sources.<br /> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Agile Content Framework: </b>Build an agile content framework where you have the ability to rapidly create and react to market forces. For e.g. add to your open ended personas based on new information from sources internal & external; update content with new insights based on your buyers’ interaction in the channels; tweak and revise as you gain usage feedback to formats & mediums; and evangelize expert and influencers content from inside and outside your organization. <br /> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Big Ideas:</b> Creative concepts hold the key to differentiation and success. But don’t be remiss in evaluating creative concepts and content to ensure they are strategically and organizationally viable. Whether you are considering a mobile roadshow, a social media contest, or an interactive series led by luminaries -- make sure to establish a set of questions that help you determine success. How will you communicate to your decision makers? How memorable is this idea? Can this idea be implemented with existing resources or do you need to onboard new talent? Is the execution timeline too long? And most importantly, how will it work in the context of larger marketing efforts? </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Data and Analytics</b> was the other third area dominating the conversation. While the MarTech landscape is teeming with tools and platforms to enable different aspects of data capture and customer insights, regardless of where you are with infrastructure and systems, there are few fundamentals that I think are crucial towards improving upon your organization’s data-driven decision making in reaching the omni-channel buyer and driving real business value.</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>360-Degree View:</b> Building a 360-degree view of the buyer for B2B marketers is key. Use big data and its applications in alignment with your sales, product and marketing teams to create an in-depth framework around customer insights and uncover new opportunities. This can drive significant impact as the GE keynote demonstrated where GE Power connected IoT with digital tools to deliver a tangible experience that created one of GE’s fastest growing businesses, rethinking products beyond the traditional use cases. <br /> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Value:</b> Demonstrating value, whether you are in an emerging or a mature B2B business is fundamental to your omni-channel buyer experience and building ROI. Based on your data, segment your audience, personalize your communications with valuable information, and enable it across multiple channels -- connecting dots between data gained from each and rethinking how to address their non-linearity and progress through the experience. This becomes a good basis for not just vast net fishing, but targeted execution of Account Based Marketing (ABM). <br /> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Step Ladder Measurement Approach:</b> If you are serious about executing on the omni-channel buyer experience, start with building a discipline of measurement in the organization. Set up dashboards with primary, secondary and tertiary KPIs that behave like a step ladder to broader goals and functions as intelligence tools to continue to provide data around buyer needs and wants as well as outlining your progress to the broader organization. Each measurement metric has a role to play. Your PPC impressions can ladder up to awareness KPIs which form a core of your buyer experience and that in turn ladders up to your business goals such as market share or pipeline goals of MQLs and SALs. </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Needless to say, there were many other Digital Marketing topics discussed that marketers and organizations are focused on as well. I would love to hear thoughts around what you are considering to be your top areas for 2017.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-26656757703462499872017-03-06T01:45:00.002-08:002017-03-15T07:11:18.623-07:00Can Health Care Providers Use Digital Approaches for Growth and Engagement?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>By Vicki Amalfitano</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Vice President for Marketing and Planning</i> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />Health care has been at the top of the national political agenda for over two decades. Hospitals in particular are in the cross-hairs of the debates over cost, quality and efficiency. At the same time, health care is one of the country’s most heavily regulated industries. Can such an industry <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">—</span> one that relies heavily on bricks and mortar plus a large and diverse professional staff that provides the most personal of all services and must adhere to the strictest privacy standards <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">—</span> use digital approaches to grow and engage its target markets? It can because of the industry’s long standing involvement in advanced technology and data management.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Secure Patient Portals</b><br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Today’s electronic health record system provide secure portals for patients to view their data (aka personal health information), communicate with their physicians and office staff on questions, appointments, prescriptions and referrals. Health care providers can push information on a patient’s health care risks, conditions and treatment, making patients apart of their health care team. Portals have led to enhanced patient engagement and retention by hospitals and health systems.<br /> </span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Distance Health<br /> </span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Telehealth is a term that encompasses a wide range of business-building technologies for hospitals and their physicians. Large teaching and referral hospitals routinely provide remote consultations to more remote and smaller organizations. Telestroke services, as one example, provide consultations to other <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">electronic data</span> based on images and other clinical information on patients presenting with complex stroke symptoms, and can facilitate transfers of patients as needed. Online second opinion services assist physicians and patients who upload diagnostic information for remote sub-specialist review at leading hospitals and which often results in referrals. Virtual visits are being quickly adopted for a variety of more routine patient-physician interactions, and even virtual urgent care visits are available in more advanced programs, creating access, efficiency and new clinical volume.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Websites</b><br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Effective healthcare provider websites should be the digital experience for all constituents. Patients and families should be able to research their health issues, find a specialist, make an appointment, pay their bills, schedule educational events, and find all the information they need to navigate the system in a logical manner. Physicians should be able to also find a consulting specialist and refer a patient digitally, register for continuing medical education programs and apply for training programs. Everyone should be able to locate clinical trial and enrollment information.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Synchronous and Asynchronous Online Education</b><br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Information and education is a core service of health care organizations. Leading programs now offer patients the ability to avoid trips to the hospital or doctor’s office for information sessions. They can attend surgery preparation classes, childbirth education and a variety of prevention and wellness programs online with an expert, where Q&A takes place seamlessly, or on demand at their convenience. Online testing modules facilitate confirmation that the patient is informed and ready for the planned intervention. Increasingly, physician continuing medical education can take place on an organization’s website, increasing engagement between the medical community and the health care provider.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Content Marketing: Digital and Social Media</b><br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Content marketing across social media and all digital platforms suits healthcare organizations because of the plethora of content they develop and curate everyday on topics of great personal interest to consumers and the biomedical community. Social media platforms and digital marketing encourage all audiences to engage with the healthcare brand. Personalization and automation technologies bring the audience from the top of the funnel through opting in for more interaction and ultimately connection.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As these examples indicate, even highly regulated and bureaucratic organizations like large health care providers are capitalizing on digital technologies in their direct to consumer (DTC) and business to business (B2B) marketing to engage, grow and retain their customer bases.<br /><br /><i>Vicki Amalfitano has been a strategic marketing leader in complex health care systems for over 20 years. Her interests include building brand and business for health care providers and academic enterprises, to strengthen their ability to advance medicine and science. She is currently responsible for market planning and execution at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a major teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, and is an instructor in strategic marketing management at the Harvard School of Public Health. </i></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-33625323590373579262016-11-21T00:37:00.001-08:002016-12-13T00:01:14.586-08:00Keep Your Content Marketing Grounded in the Essentials<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Paramita Bhattacharya</b><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Director, Integrated Marketing,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Content and Digital Marketing, Demand Generation</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Hitachi Data Systems</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">More than a few thousand content, digital and brand professionals convened at an industry event not too long ago. As they explored and exchanged insights, it became clear to me that it is ever so important to not forget the fundamentals that are pivotal to content marketing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We are encountering increasing sophistication of marketing automation and content platforms and constantly challenged by fast moving changes in advertising, search and syndication. In the face of this, it’s easy to lose sight of the essentials of content marketing and adversely impact the customer experience.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Here is what I consider the key pillars of Content Marketing:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Pillar #1 <b>Content Strategy: </b>Start with a clear articulation of your business objectives and campaign goals. Highlight content themes based on core messaging around your product, solutions and brand propositions. Hopefully, at this point, you already have your customer-buying journey defined along with buyer personas. Doing this will help your content strategy deliver valuable content to your prospects and customers in each stage of their buying/purchase journey.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Pillar #2 <b>Content Plan: </b>Design a content map across your customer’s buying journey and define objectives for each content asset. Identify suitable formats based on your desired story to tell. Here, create an optimum mix of multiple media, short and long forms, and a combination of original and third party/expert content. As this plan starts to take shape, focus on content re-use and customization to address various audience needs. Draw in your best internal and external design, copy, UX, UI and video resources to build the best content - striving for efficiency, quality and effectiveness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Pillar #3 <b>Content Promotion: </b>Promoting and distributing content is the game changer. This is where your content meets your channels in a distinct, unique manner – to delight and engage your prospects and customers. Map and plot your content into a matrix of paid, owned and earned media. Connect your various content interactions into a coherent customer experience - across web pages, PR articles, text and display advertising, along with blogs and social media posts. The more you match your media footprint with your prospects and customers, the better your engagement and value.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Pillar #4 <b>Content Measurement: </b>Gathering insights into what’s working and what’s not begins with measurement. It’s often helpful to measure incremental success or micro conversions - along the path to the final success criteria whatever that maybe for you (driving qualified leads, increasing the pipeline, or generating actual sales etc.). These micro-conversions can be content usage, consumption, shares, likes, impressions, views etc. and is primarily based on the channel. Even though they are sometimes dismissed as vanity metrics, they can be a leading indicator of the potential success of your content campaign and help you test and optimize accordingly. Plus these help establish credibility, relevance and engagement with your prospects and customers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I hope you found this helpful in formulating an end-to-end content life cycle that is designed to engage new prospects and play a leading role in converting them to customers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What, in your opinion, is critical to building a successful content marketing campaign? Let me know your comments.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Paramita Bhattacharya leads the development of content marketing strategy and the digital campaign content calendar for IoT, Cloud, Converged Infrastructure, Virtualization, Flash Storage & Mobility offerings at Hitachi Data Systems. She was previously a Group Manager at Adobe where she drove customer engagement and revenue through strategic content, integrated digital campaigns, multi-touch programs and digital platforms leveraging inbound & outbound tactics, and partnered with multiple disciplines. She is a member of the Frost & Sullivan Digital Marketing Advisory Board.</i></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-20738900496495687552016-11-21T00:34:00.004-08:002016-11-23T00:39:25.628-08:00Content Alone is NOT the End Game<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jacob Baldwin</b><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Global Manager, Digital Marketing</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Emerson Climate Technologies</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We’ve all heard it–maybe even used it–time and time again. It’s the ever-popular idiom that’s thrown around like mud on the walls in a brainstorming session–Content is King. But what does that really mean? Sure, with the proliferation of conversational search, Hummingbird, even content marketing–content has become the golden child upon which many a strategy hangs, and with good reason. But just as the title of this post implies, content alone is not enough.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>What is Content, Anyway?</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ask this question to a room full of marketers and 9 times out of 10, you’ll get a cookie cutter answer: “Webpages, white papers, blog posts, press releases, social media posts”…on and on and on and on. I have a different opinion–to me, content is an articulation of expertise, communicated through the aforementioned channels (blogs, white papers, webpages, etc…). A good way to think about it is to imagine a white paper that has no subject, no words, it’s just a shell–we marketers fill in the shell with expertise that our target market is [ideally] looking for. This is where the other members of the team come into play.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Content and Search</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Different studies have varying percentages, but directionally, they’re all telling the same story–businesses and consumers alike are increasingly flocking to search engines to start their research for buying decisions. Some studies show <u>nearly 90% of consumers</u> and <u>more than 70% of businesses</u> start their purchasing research with search engines. Ensuring that your content–your expertise–can be found via search is essential. I am not going to harp on best practices of SEO; resources are plentiful if you take a look. Instead, I am going to focus on how your content marketing and search campaigns can form a symbiotic relationship, helping each other soar to new heights.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The essence of search optimization (paid and organic) is traffic acquisition. We marketers want to attract people who have problems that we can solve, and turn them into leads. It is insane how many marketers write or commission a white paper to be written without selecting target keywords to use throughout the article. Keyword research/strategy is the cornerstone to any solid search marketing program. With the correct keywords selected and infused into your processes from the beginning, the contextual qualifiers and variations of your targeted keyword will manifest organically. And this is huge, considering the latest Google updates. One of the most important aspects to organic search optimization is building earned editorial links. It is essential that you build links into your content to reference pages from your digital properties (and others, if appropriate, but NOT competitors) that have resources for users to dig deeper into a concept, product, or service if they want to. The symbiotic relationship comes in this form: optimization for search helps the content get discovered. Engagement with that content helps drive organic ranking, further helping that content get in front of users’ eyes. It’s a beautiful cycle.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Content, CRO, and Analytics</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When considering how content marketing and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) play together, for many organizations, access to some content comes at a price–whether it’s an email address and first name or the completion of a full-fledged business profile. CRO is one of my favorite topics in digital marketing. Great practitioners understand that CRO is where psychology, design, messaging, and UX intersect. Billions can (and have) been made and lost as a direct result of CRO testing. To me, CRO in the simplest terms is the management of the perceived cost to perceived value ratio. If the elements on your page work to effectively communicate your value proposition, and generate interest while reducing friction and anxiety, you’re on the road to success…and a promotion. Oftentimes, this is not the case. Legacy data fields and dependencies on IT are often roadblocks to getting rid of extraneous elements in conversion processes. It is a battle you’ll have to fight. And win.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Weaving strategies together for content marketing, search optimization, and CRO will pay off in dividends. Each piece, if effectively done, works to bolster the performance of each of the other elements. Content that’s optimized for search, and content portals that are optimized for conversion, will effectively deliver significant gains in return ratios to your marketing efforts. In conclusion, let’s hit on a few key points that we covered today:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Let’s be careful not to confuse content with content mediums</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Optimizing your content for the correct keyword selections from the beginning will help contextual content qualifiers and keyword variations manifest organically within the content</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A strategic and scientific testing methodology will work to tilt the perceived cost to perceived value ratio in your favor. Achieve this by first ensuring your value proposition clearly articulates the exclusive benefits your product/service offers, then work to add factors supporting the credibility behind these claims. Next, work to remove unnecessary friction from conversion processes. This, in conjunction with your efforts to inspire interest in your offer, will work to reduce the amount of anxiety your users experience in your conversion funnels</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Jacob Baldwin is the Global Manager of Digital Marketing at Emerson Climate Technologies. Previously, he was Digital Marketing Manager at One Call Now. Over the past several years, he has been recognized as an emerging expert in the field of digital marketing, speaking at multiple national industry conferences and contributing to numerous notable industry publications. Feel free to reach out to him via Twitter @jacobaldwin, or find him on LinkedIn.</i></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-20013734682427653342016-11-21T00:20:00.000-08:002016-11-22T01:10:08.518-08:00Content Marketing: What B2B Marketers Can Learn from B2C<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Mona Baset</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Carolinas HealthCare System</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I’ve spent my career in both the B2B and B2C worlds, and I’ve never understood why there has traditionally been such a sharp distinction between marketing to businesses and marketing to consumers. Aren’t we all consumers? Once you start seeing everyone as a consumer, something magical happens. You bring humanity into the marketing process, which is the key to engagement with your brand.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Taking a human-centered approach to content for B2B marketing means that no matter what role someone plays in their company, they still want to read interesting things. Business people are people, too! Think about how interesting good fiction is. The reader can’t wait to get to the next page. Why can’t all content take this approach? Offer up questions that people HAVE to get answered. Use visuals. Be the click bait that actually delivers. We wrote a piece about one of our patients who went into sudden cardiac arrest at 25. Our headline could have read, “Carolinas HealthCare System’s Experienced Doctors Save Young Man’s Life.” Instead, our headline was “Omar and the Unstoppable Heart.” It was just as interesting as fiction, starring a real-life character. The content was promoted on our website and social media, pitched to media and influencers, and boosted in social, paid search, native and display. We also did a stop motion video that could live on its own. Omar’s story was one of our most successful, and so many more people were able to engage with our brand.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>If you can’t be interesting, be helpful</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Any topic can be interesting if positioned the right way, but if you’re struggling, take the pressure off and think about being helpful instead. During the panic around the Zika virus this summer, there was a lot of information out there from many different sources. How did people know whom to trust? Your positioning of the content can differentiate you from information already out there. As a healthcare system, we had the credibility to communicate with our communities and beyond, and packaged it in a way that would be most helpful. We used Google AdWords to understand what people were searching for, and constructed our communications to address those very questions. We also addressed the specific situations that could prompt a search in the first place. A parent might be trying to protect their child at camp or themselves while hiking in the mountains. Overlaying specific circumstances adds contextual relevance to the information, making it more relatable. Our headlines included, “Zika Virus: Your Top Questions Answered” and “Traveling? Preparation Can Lessen Zika Fears.” And all articles featured our doctors, reinforcing that credibility. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Tap into what people want</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Google AdWords is a great place to start to understand trends around what people are searching for. But alone, it won’t get you to the deep insights you need to connect in a compelling way with your consumers. Reading trending content on the subject, using online tools can help you to identify content gaps for differentiation. Combing through your consumer surveys will give you another view, but still isn’t enough. Take a design thinking approach as well. Talk to your consumers – or potential consumers – about how they go about their day doing the things that might align with your product. If you are selling a marketing management tool, ask them to walk you through how they manage their projects today. Listen and watch closely. Have them show you what they need – rather than expecting them to tell you. Understand what their pain points are and what motivates them. You can take this information back to improve your products and speak to potential customers in the right way. More people will connect with your brand in a more meaningful way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>And give it to them where they want it</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Knowing where your readers are searching for the information, in what format, and when, is critical in reaching your consumers. Consider that in a world of never-ending meetings, many B2B decision makers conduct research after hours. Many subscribe to leading publications and industry journals to stay ahead – that content is often of the highest authority to your readers. Sponsoring content on those domains gives you greater visibility and authority to readers who matter. Also, use your client use cases to tell your story. It’s a less self-promoting way of talking about the value of your products; the brands tell your story for you. An integrated approach to content distribution and a targeted approach to promotion is essential for content marketing success. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Content marketing is where you can differentiate your business on a very crowded playing field. By taking a human-centered approach, you can increase your chances for success. Be interesting, be helpful, and tap into what people want and where they want it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Mona Baset is Assistant Vice President of Advertising, Digital & Brand Management for Carolinas HealthCare System. She leads advertising and media activities, management of the Carolinas HealthCare System brand, consumer digital channels, creative design and content, and marketing operations management. Carolinas HealthCare System is one of the largest not-for-profit healthcare organizations in the country, with 60,000 employees and 900 locations in North and South Carolina.</i></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-52040519620111367452016-08-16T03:50:00.002-07:002016-08-17T07:49:39.097-07:00Essential Take-Aways from 17th Annual Digital Marketing: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXChange<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><b>By Teresa Caro</b><br /><i>Senior Vice President, Marketing</i><br />Fortiva (an Atlanticus company)<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Top marketers recently gathered in Asheville, North Carolina at the <b>17th Annual Digital Marketing: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXChange.</b> As you might guess from the event theme, <b><i>Digital Transformation: Leading Marketing’s Revolution</i></b>, there is much to learn and much to do as a marketer today. Examples abound. Our favorite new word: <i>SMarketing</i>. What every event conversation came back to: <i>content marketing</i>. What can help you define your target audience: <i>Personas</i>.<br /><br />Yet so much of what was discussed at this highly energizing and informative event circled back to remembering your marketing fundamentals: identifying your target audience, measuring response and optimally integrating sales and marketing. All important to keep in mind no matter what new technology or strategy you are applying.<br /><br />So, yes, leverage the essential take-aways and technologies below to take your marketing to the next level, to compete in the age of IoT and ultra-empowered and connected customers. But, as you innovate and transform, remember your marketing basics too. <br /><br /><b>Define Business Objectives</b><br />Content, content, content. Every discussion came back to the use of content marketing across the buyer journey. Yet, unless it is direct response content, measuring the impact on the organization remains a struggle for most companies. To make this a bit easier, it is important to start by identifying the ultimate goal of your organization: branding awareness, brand perception, or simply sales. Second, ensure your company understands the difference between KPIs and metrics. KPIs resonate with the CEO: increased sales, decreased costs, as well as indicators of sales such as brand awareness, perception, and net promoter score (NPS). Whereas, metrics help respective departments optimize over time: time spent with the content, content downloads, content shares, etc. <br /><br />Even though the most common KPI is increased sales, several organizations talked about how they had brand challenges and hoped content could be used to shift perception. One of the groups discussed creating baseline branding surveys or net promoter score (NPS) surveys before the campaign launched in order to show success over time.<br /><br /><b>Identify Target Audiences</b><br />Whether it was called Persona-Based Marketing, Account-Based Marketing, or Addressable Marketing, it all came down to a renewed focus on defining the target audience as specifically as possible. Yet, organizations are also pushing further to align prospect/customer experience with journey maps. As each persona takes a step in the journey, companies are detailing the respective challenges, and devices used (PC, tablet, mobile, 3-ring binder, etc). With this type of visual, it is easy to identify gaps and tailor content to support different parts of the sales and customer retention process. <br /><br />Key reminders from these discussions included: 1) Remember, customers are always on, always connected, and go everywhere, both digitally and non-digitally. 2) <a href="https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/blog/t/turkey-slicing-2-0-a-content-marketing-thanksgiving-tradition" target="_blank">Think “Rocks & Turkey Slices,” as in you can build a big content piece and then repurpose it in many different ways</a> 3) Be sure to recognize what’s working by audience, by journey step, and what is not, and optimize or re-organize quickly.<br /><br /><b>Integrate Sales and Marketing Tactics</b><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Our favorite marketing word from the conference: SMarketing. SMarketing is when sales and marketing are aligned strategically and tactically. Why is SMarketing important? Several reasons: 1) Marketing doesn’t have all the answers (although we like to think we do). Instead, marketing needs to be a team sport, and should not occur in a vacuum or silo. It’s better to partner internally and foster strong collaboration. 2) The journey map, if done correctly, should reflect how sales and marketing touch the prospect in different ways and each step in the journey. If you agree with the point one speaker made about marketing effectiveness being directly related to a medium’s ability to tell a story, you will understand why in-person events continue to be the most effective channel: It is a salesperson’s ability to tell a story which specifically relates to one person (the sales person in this case is the medium). The story cannot end with this medium though and becomes more impactful when it continues after the show through marketing touches, intermingled with sales follow ups. See example below:</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Finally, how does today’s marketer pull it all together? Tools to choose from include salesforce automation, marketing automation, analytics, content marketing solutions, and so on. There was a great deal of brainstorming around how to make the business case for a particular platform and how to do more with the same resources. Many participants voiced issues with how to stay in alignment with sales (and get them to use the technology, oy). Another recurring challenge: how to be more automated and personalized? Everyone had an opinion on their favorite solution and platform and it will likely change again next year. When marketing in a digital world, the most important thing is that you stay in the discussion.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Interested in learning more about <b>17th Annual Digital Marketing: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXChange</b> and all the great marketing take-aways and insights? They are available in one handy document, the<b> Executive MindXchange Chronicles</b>. To learn more, please contact Matthew McSweegan @ 516-255-3812 or email: <a href="mailto:matthew.mcsweegan@frost.com" target="_blank"><b>matthew.mcsweegan@frost.com</b></a>. <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You can also <a href="http://ww2.frost.com/event/calendar/digital-marketing/knowledge-center/executive-mindxchange-chronicles/" target="_blank">click here</a>.</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>As Senior Vice President of Marketing for Fortiva (an Atlanticus company), Teresa Caro brings over 20 years of strategic marketing experience in the digital and traditional space, including email, social, and analytics. Teresa plays an instrumental role in defining how Fortiva and its B2B2C and B2C brands can improve sales and customer retention, strengthen loyalty, and increase advocacy through the use of digital marketing and technology.</i></span><br />
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<i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Prior to joining Fortiva, Teresa held two leadership roles at leading agencies: Senior Vice President of Social and Content Marketing for Engauge (acquired by Publicis and merged with Moxie), as well as the head of strategy for the southeast region of Razorfish. She is also a past-president of the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (AiMA). @teresacaro</i><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-32117076692857060092016-08-09T04:24:00.000-07:002016-08-16T07:03:06.256-07:00Managing Brand Consistency across All Channels<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Lance Kinerk</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Director, Global Digital Practice </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ingersoll Rand</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Navigating home after a long day at the office, you pull into the driveway, jump out of the car, walk through the front door and find your family circling to get ready for the evening in front of the television. Does this sound like you? Probably not, because that is what happened in the 1950’s when you would find 50% of the U.S. population watching the number one television show in the country, “I Love Lucy.” Today, you would be lucky to find anyone in your family in the same room. Instead, they are probably wandering around the house, wirelessly connected to a community that could be halfway around the world, sending media messages through Snapchat, We Chat, Facebook Messaging, Google+, or whatever launched yesterday, as they simultaneously watch something on Netflix, YouTube, Facebook Live, Periscope, Apple TV, Roku, or Youku. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The fact that people are sharing media on their own, with their own comments, requires brands to be even more diligent about what they put into the market. In fact, brands need to focus on three things to be successful in 2017 and beyond: organizational structure, technology, and standards. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In the digital world there are no geographic boundaries. You need a global team focused on the brand first and the different business lines second. This is very important, because in the digital world the brand leads. This can be demonstrated when you do a search of some of your favorite brands. If the search results in a brand that provides you quick links to their top business lines, you can surmise they are successfully organized around the brand. For example, search Bank of America and you will see checking, home loans, small business banking, and auto loans links, an organized brand presentation. If you find the paid search results in one line of business being highlighted instead of the parent brand, it is likely the organization is decentralized. For example, search Suzuki and most often Suzuki Cycles are presented without mention of autos. One line of business leading the brand conversation leads me to believe the different lines of business are operating to achieve their objectives before the overall objectives of the whole organization. This is neither good for the investors nor the user of the brand. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Now that we have established the importance of organizing the team around the brand, the next thing to think about are the key tactics in good digital marketing. Therefore, align the organization based on the tactics (SEO, Paid Search, UX, Analytics, and Lead Generation) and make sure there are people assigned to each of the tactics. If the size of your business is bigger than the resources provided to your function, figure out what is most important to your business and own that with your top people while outsourcing the rest. The most important function today is analytics, because it provides insights into the marketplace even before financial results. We are able to see search volumes fluctuate before we see sales volumes fluctuate. The analytics team can therefore provide insight into the market and begin to test ideas for corrective action or increase what is working. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In relation to setting up a sound organizational structure, developing standards is very important. Yet, standards for marketing professionals can be perceived as a dirty word. It sounds like you are trying to take the art out of marketing. However, I want to explain why that is not the case. If implemented correctly, standards provide guidance and increase creativity. You can focus on the creative and not spend time getting approvals from legal, IT, product engineering, etc. In addition, standards create consistency for the user. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Always seeing the IBM blue bars on a television commercial gives the viewer context immediately. Follow this same diligence in social channels, on television, in blog posts, in stores, and on manuals. That means engage all senses with standard practices. Make sure your auditory signals, visual signals, scent (yes, scent is the most powerful memory cue) and text are all the same globally. This seems to be so basic, but I continually run into brands that do not maintain this consistency. The problems exist when the standards are too geographically specific and are unable to translate globally. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Now leverage technology that supports your strategy and extends your reach. There are over 2,000 vendors in the digital marketing space today. The sheer number makes the task of selecting the right partner daunting. However, at the same time it’s extremely likely that there is a technology out there that can do what you need it to do. Therefore, focus on your current organization and standards and connect with a technology partner that will facilitate this. In the digital marketing space it is important to create content once and be able to repurpose it in a multitude of distribution channels; so a partner that begins with this in mind is a good start. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Here are a few ideas to think about when selecting a partner: Will they last? Will they provide consultative help to your organization? Is their technology team adept at API development --in case you want to connect into current enterprise systems-- and you will. Will they continue to invest in the software you are buying? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In summary, focus on the things you can control. This will allow your more relevant messages to beat out any of the noise. Consistently monitor the channels and focus on improving your process. As new channels appear, you will be able to quickly adapt and maintain a consistent brand image.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Lance Kinerk is Director of the Global Digital Practice at Ingersoll Rand. During his career he has been involved in sales, operations, and marketing. Lance has taken his digital experience into diverse projects such as starting a home automation company, building the largest man made whitewater river and outdoor recreation facility, bringing a failing company out of bankruptcy, and leading a diversified manufacturing company into the digital age. He currently sits on the board of Tripstr and is an active investor in several other digital media companies. Lance has a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Davidson College and a Master of Business Administration from Vanderbilt University, Owen Graduate School of Business.</i></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-11770064451397640982016-08-04T02:19:00.006-07:002016-08-11T06:45:54.320-07:00Discussing Digital Marketing with:<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Matthew Royse</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Director, Marketing Communications</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i><b>Frost & Sullivan:</b> Energized by his participation at the <b>17th Annual Digital Marketing: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange event</b> in Asheville, North Carolina this summer, Matthew Royse answered a few more timely questions about digital marketing. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>We began by asking him to share his top two social selling tips from his presentation at the event, </i><b><i>The Social Selling Revolution: 10 Tips to a Successful Social Selling Program That Drives Business Results.</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Matthew Royse:</b> Start small with a pilot to get C-suite buy-in and have a plan for follow up and reinforcement. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">For examples, to get C-suite buy-in, it is critical that your initiative starts small with a pilot. The pilot should be long enough to collect information but short enough so that it doesn’t take up too many resources. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>There are five ways to get C-suite to buy-in on social selling: </b></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Set a vision and establish a strategy. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Find an internal social selling champion who can help you show the value and importance of social selling.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Provide use cases or case studies on how other companies are taking advantage of social selling. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The C-suite takes notice when competitors are doing something that your company is not doing. Find out what your competitors’ plans are for social selling. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Build the business case during the pilot with documentation through a charter that explains scope of the initiative, identifying an executive sponsor or sponsors and a timeline to show what is or what is not working.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">To make your social selling program successful, it needs to stick so reinforcement and follow up are critical. Research shows companies that reinforce post-training activities achieve better business results. Ongoing education and reinforcement is vital to long-term success of your program. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Your sales team needs a partner like marketing or sales enablement team to keep them up-to-date with the ever-changing landscape of social media and LinkedIn. For example, are we ready for potential LinkedIn changes as a result of the Microsoft buying LinkedIn? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Establishing a feedback loop with the sales team is critical for marketing and sales enablement teams who are leading this initiative. To help with reinforcement, explore some social selling tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, PeopleLinx, and TrapIt. Also, it is important to provide your team with social selling resources with helpful blogs like Sales for Life and HubSpot. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Do you think there are any organizations that have successfully figured out how to leverage social media marketing effectively or profitably? Examples?</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There are three brands that are using social media marketing effectively: Oreo, Dove and Domino’s.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Oreo is constantly producing fresh, relevant content on their social media websites. Oreo really made its name for itself on social media with the Super Bowl tweet “you can still dunk in the dark.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Dove is always creating content aimed at making women feel good about themselves. Dove’s “Speak Beautiful” campaign encouraged women to be more positive when tweeting about beauty and body image. They teamed up with Twitter to measure how positive or negative women’s tweets are. People retweet a post on Dove’s Twitter account that has the hashtag #speakbeautiful and then Dove automatically responds to them with a link to a custom microsite that displays personalized Twitter data as a chart and how their tweets stack up against other women. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Domino’s </i>is helping their customers order pizza in an easier way. They are also taking advantage of a trend of emoji’s on social media. Customers just need to tweet a pizza emoji to the Domino’s Twitter account or use the hashtag #easyorder.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Your key take-away(s) from the 17th Annual Digital Marketing: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange event?</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There were two big event takeaways for me:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We, as marketers, need to shift toward agile marketing. Agile marketing helps large enterprises more quickly respond to change. It values rapid iterations over big campaigns; uses data and testing to drive modifications in executing the strategy; values small pilots over a few large bets; and encourages collaboration over silos and hierarchy. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Be remarkable. Do something truly exceptional that stands out in a world of noise. What makes our company different than our competitors?. We need to constantly ask ourselves: Why are creating this piece of content? Why are we posting this to social media? If it doesn’t add value, why are we doing this? It is important that we, as marketers, constantly question things and try new things. It is ok to fail. </span></li>
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<b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><i>How about a recent digital marketing success story? Anything you would like to share that other marketers can learn from? </i></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A recent successful digital marketing storys that stands out the most is the creation of our first eBook: Are You Ready for Data Center Facility of the Future. We created it for our new subsidiary, Forsythe Data Centers, a colocation data center outside of Chicago. The goal of the eBook was position Forsythe Technology as a thought leader on how the data center is changing and how to prepare for the future data center. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">To provide well-rounded content, we teamed up with our partners, Emerson Network Power and Anixter. We interviewed their thought leaders. As a result of their participation, they agreed to help promote the eBook. More than 400 people have downloaded it.. It has led to numerous opportunities for our sales team. Our sales team liked it so much they wanted the eBook printed so they could personally hand deliver it to their clients. It helped them have conversations with their clients about how companies can get ready for the future of the data center.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The eBook has helped us refine our content marketing strategy. Our strategy has evolved so we now create heavy weight and strategic content first with an eBook. Then, we repurpose and repackage the content from an eBook into different formats such as articles, infographics, webinars, and SlideShare presentations. We also promote the eBook in our email marketing programs. This strategy has been so successful that we are in the midst of our creating our next eBooks that will follow this similar framework. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Modern marketing is inextricably linked to technology…any technologies that you are particularly excited about?</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Right now there are a lot of new and exciting marketing technologies at our fingertips, but with the never-ending options, it sometimes feels like navigating a transit map. Whether you jump in as an early adopter or ease into new technologies, the key is to understand these marketing technologies personally so you can advise your company on how it can work for you professionally. Right now, I am exploring wearables. It worked out well that I won a Fitbit at the Frost and Sullivan conference.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Any final marketing insights or observations? </i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am seeing a strong shift toward influencer marketing. Developing content with influencers has become a standard best practice for your content marketing and social media efforts. You may be asking: what is influencer marketing? Influence marketing is when a company works with key influencers to co-write content and the influencers would share that content with their networks. A great example is our data center eBook I mentioned earlier and LinkedIn’s Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide. In this series of guides, LinkedIn has created guides for content marketing and thought leadership. The influencers who co-create content for guides share the content online with their communities. Influencer marketing has become a more effective method for reaching a company’s target audiences at a more affordable price than advertising.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Speaking of advertising, advertising is not dead. It has just evolved, in large part because of digital marketing. According to a recent report, social media has capture a quarter of all digital ad spending. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Matthew Royse is the director of marketing communications for Forsythe Technology, one of the largest independent IT integrators in North America. He has more than 15 years of experience in marketing and communications, working in many different industries, including financial services, technology, media and entertainment.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>At Forsythe Technology, Matthew oversees all content marketing and social media initiatives internally and externally, across multiple platforms and formats to drive sales, engagement, retention, leads and positive behavior with clients, partners, analysts and employees. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Matthew currently teaches a social media class for students in Duke's Event Development Certification program. He has spoken about social media and content marketing at numerous industry and regional events.</i></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-2448336309958805832016-08-04T02:13:00.003-07:002016-08-11T06:48:31.968-07:00Meeting Consumer Demand for Your Brand: The New Playbook for CMOs <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>M</b></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>att Preschern</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Executive Vice President<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">,</span>Chief Marketing Officer</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In this second decade of 21st century marketing, the playing field is changing swiftly. The pace of change accelerates month by month and often week by week. Consumers have upped their game through mobile technology and hyper-connected environments at home, at work and on the road. If you haven’t yet rewritten your own strategic playbook to identify and capitalize on this change, you risk being overrun by consumer demands for your brand to match their own constantly transforming lifestyle. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It’s not just about speed—consumers have always sought faster access to products, greater responsiveness to their questions and faster deliveries. Our challenge as CMOs is to be agile enough to race <i>ahead </i>of the consumer’s expectations while anticipating them. If you don’t respond to a customer email within an hour, a customer call within 30 minutes, or a customer order request within seconds, you’re likely to lose that customer. She can order from your competitor in just seconds with the touch of a graphic button. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Complicating the challenge is the need to personalize your response with contextually relevant information. If you’re still dumping pre-written answers to frequent questions into your online chat windows, you’re dying or dead. Instead, we can now use data analytics more extensively than ever before to ensure we meet each customer one-to-one and face-to-face, predicting the questions she will ask and the products she will prefer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The new playbook also requires us to carve new crosslinks to connect channels. For the consumer, it’s all one big channel now. What she finds online she expects to see at the store. When she places an order on her phone, it had better be equally accessible in the aisle and on her front doorstep, whichever she prefers. With ever rarer exceptions, today’s shopping excursion is a single digital experience that runs across all social media and stores (online and off). A single customer may choose different outlets at different times or different points in the sales process--awareness on Facebook, preference on Yelp, selection and questions at the physical store site, purchase on Amazon--so we want to be ready to present a consistently attractive and convenient experience that cuts across all channels.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This new digitally driven destiny for marketers also embraces the sharing economy. Millennials increasingly make their way through the world by sharing data. They expect brands to have their data at hand, through social media and previous online shopping patterns. It’s important that we understand millennial consumers and present product information in the context of their individual preferences as gleaned from their shared data via analytics.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The pace is indeed frantic. Big data, therefore, becomes critical to staying ahead of the consumer, requiring more automated systems that digest consumer data and guide the buying experience. “Big strategies” no longer appear valid. In the months you might spend building a conventional campaign, everything will have changed--technology, social media, market conditions, competitors--and you may find that you never catch up, much less get ahead. And large, complex strategies can’t possibly furnish the agility and personalization that we need now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Rather than attempting to pull consumers in, CMOs ought to consider adopting the characteristics of the consumer’s shopping style so as to join them in their hither-and-yon shopping journey. Five tenets are especially important to this process:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Understand that the experience is everything. </b>Create an authentic experience that resonates with consumer emotions. When a consumer can connect to a brand’s core values through experiences, engagement shifts from a company effort to a consumer desire. Context, coherency and collaboration within an ecosystem make for outstanding experiences.</span></li>
<li><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Measure outcomes, not opportunities. </b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Consider putting a stop to chasing metrics such as “marketing-qualified leads” and begin working closely with sales to target and convert your </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">best</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> prospects, your most profitable customer segments. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Stay agile and lean. </b>Build teams that respond quickly to unanticipated market changes. Demolish silos and flatten hierarchies with teams that prioritize small experiments over large bets. Create a culture of experimentation by transforming your workplace from one that values opinions and conventions to one that thrives in testing and data.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Build your marketing operation like you build your IT operation. </b>Trying to assemble all the technologies required for a world-class in-house marketing operation would be as expensive and inefficient as assembling all the software you use in doing your job. You employ software as a service(SaaS); it may be time for you to adopt a marketing-as-a-service approach as well. MaaS lets your marketers choose capabilities on demand to build out their marketing technology architecture. It’s scalable, efficient and fast.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Redefine your partnerships. </b>Today your best partners are your customers, and they can join your suppliers, affiliates and developers in a mutually beneficial ecosystem enabled by APIs. For example, when you search for directions using Google Maps on a mobile device, you’ll see a tab showing estimated pickup times and fares for Uber options available in a particular city, and a click on any airline site will enable you to search for a car and hotel room from hospitality partners. Application program interfaces, commonly known as APIs, make these connections both possible and valuable. Advances soon will make every business a technology company, racing along the Internet of Things, growing smarter with artificial intelligence systems. Creating ecosystems of partners and developers to produce seamless, engaging customer experiences will be crucial to outrunning the pace of change.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It’s a new game with new formations and a new, much more expansive playing field. CMOs can benefit from rejecting convention. When you become more agile, adaptive and connected, you can build a winning brand that resonates with a vibrant marketplace.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Matt Preschern is Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of HCL Technologies. Matt leads all marketing functions, including global business, strategic marketing, sales enablement and corporate communications to drive demand, growth and value for the HCL Technologies brand. A global citizen, Matt was born and educated in Austria and has an MBA from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.</i></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-25780301945347897662016-06-06T03:01:00.002-07:002016-06-27T07:58:04.158-07:00Discussing Digital Marketing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><br />Q & A with:</b><br /><b>Matthew Royse</b><br /><i>Director, Marketing Communications</i><br />Forsythe Technology</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>By Patricia Stamas-Jacoby </b><br /><i>Publications Editor, Events </i><br />Frost & Sullivan</span></span>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Part 1 of 2 </span></i></b></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="_Tgc">–</span> Stay tuned for Part 2 in our next Digital Marketing eBulletin!</span></i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Matthew Royse will be presenting<b> </b><i><b>The Social Selling Revolution: 10 Tips to a Successful Social Selling Program That Drives Business Results</b> </i>at the<b> 17th Annual Digital Marketing: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange</b> in July. In anticipation of the event, we posed the following questions about the state of B2B Digital Marketing today. <br />A key take-away: Marketing is no longer just a cost center, but can drive business transformation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i><b>Frost & Sullivan: What is your working definition of digital marketing? </b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Matthew Royse:</b> If you Google the definition of digital marketing, you get a lot of different answers. You also get a lot of additional questions such as: What is e-marketing? What is digital ad sales? What is online marketing? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Digital marketing is an umbrella term that is used in many different ways, depending on the context. Simply put, it is the shift in the “value prop” of marketing to digital. By taking advantage of digital technologies such as websites, email, social media, online ads, e-commerce and other forms of digital media, marketing can better reach its target audiences. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As the world becomes digitized, the value for businesses lies in using digital to its competitive advantage to grow and better serve customers or clients. The marketing team should be leading the charge to digital because marketing has become such a critical part of today’s business model. The most successful companies today are the ones that are so useful to their target audiences with their products and services that they will become a part of daily life of their customers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>What is your organization’s working definition of digital marketing?</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The definition of digital marketing is different for every company. At Forsythe Technology, we documented our digital marketing strategy on one page in order to clearly communicate our perspective internally and with our partners. As I will briefly discuss during my upcoming presentation, <i>The Social Selling Revolution: 10 Tips to a Successful Social Selling Program That Drives Business Results,</i> we outlined the following in one page: our digital marketing strategy summary statement, the current and future state of our digital marketing, our strategy timeline, our top five digital marketing initiatives and our underlying beliefs and assumptions about digital marketing. We treat the one-pager as a living document to be updated as our digital marketing strategy evolves and as our people, processes and technologies change.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>What are your thoughts on where digital marketing is heading?</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Digital marketing will become part of everyone’s job, just like social media. Social media was initially a separate area with social media specialists and strategists. Now, social media has become part of everyone’s job description. The same will happen for digital marketing. Digital marketing will just become marketing because successful marketing today requires marketers to be hybrid or T-shape professionals. Marketers should specialize in one area such as social media or content marketing but should know enough about search engine optimization, online advertising, influencer marketing, marketing programs and other marketing functions so they can understand the holistic view of marketing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Marketing is becoming more data-driven and automated but marketing still needs the human element and the creative part of telling great stories. Companies that position themselves in the minds of customers as being helpful and useful are the ones that stay top of mind with them. One of the ways to stay top of mind with customers is through social selling. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i><b>Can you share your insights on how B2B (as opposed to B2C) organizations should leverage “social selling?” </b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Contrary to popular opinion, B2B organizations have a bigger opportunity to utilize social selling than B2C for the following reasons: there are more decision makers in a purchase decision, the purchasing process takes longer, more money is involved in a purchase and the buyers are typically more informed with tons of research.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In my upcoming presentation, I will talk about how social selling is the next evolution of content marketing and social media. Social media and content marketing have become critical to sales. Social selling is a hybrid of these two important functions. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Social selling is a revolution for sales. The old sales model used to be about cold calls, qualifying leads and sales demos. The new sales model is about education, social media networks and engagement. According to <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">CEB</span> and OgilvyOne, 60 percent of B2B customer research is conducted before contacting sales and 71 percent of salespeople believe their role will be radically different in five years. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sales is looking for a partner in marketing to help with this transition, and marketing is looking for more insight from sales on what works and what doesn’t. According to the Sales Management Association, two in three companies don’t have a social media strategy for sales, but 80 percent of sales teams would be more productive with a greater social media presence. And, according to Sirius Decisions, 60 to 70 percent of all company content goes unused. Social selling can help your company better understand what content your sales team is sharing with clients and prospects online and via social media. As marketing learns more and more about what content sales is using successfully, they can create better and more targeted content. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Can you outline the next phase of mobile marketing? </i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The next phase of mobile marketing is where a company puts its mobile experience first, which is a challenge for many companies due to legacy thinking, systems and organizing the data so it is real-time and easier for consumers. Brands understand the importance of transforming to a mobile-first, digital strategy but they are not prepared for how quickly they need to adapt to make this happen. There are a lot of changes that need to be made to people, processes and technologies at large companies in a short amount of time. That is why smaller companies have a competitive advantage—they don’t have the legacy technology and processes in place. As a result, larger companies are moving toward creating their own enterprise “app store” so they can more quickly adapt to changes in the marketplace. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Your insights on moving from multi-channel marketing to omni-channel marketing? </i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">People can now engage with a company in a physical store, via the website or mobile app or through social media, fueling the shift toward omni-channel marketing to provide a seamless customer experience across all interactions. Where companies often go wrong with the customer experience is a lack of integration between teams. Bad marketing experiences occur at the consumer/end-user level when it becomes apparent that the company’s technology, people and processes are not well integrated.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Your thoughts and good or bad experiences on integrating marketing across the organization? </i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yes, marketing should be definitely be integrated. That is one of the most important aspects of marketing today but often the most difficult. Marketing needs to ensure their department is integrated first and then work on improving integration across the organization. For example, contact centers have a wealth of information for marketers on the types of questions that they are being asked by customers. Do the contact centers record that information so that marketing can create helpful content to answer those questions? It sounds so simple. Yet, it is rarely done. Another example: Are marketing/PR teams prepared if the company gets hacked? Do they have a crisis communications and disaster recovery plan if it occurs? If so, can the company communicate it quickly?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The key for digital marketing and good customer experiences will be integration, strategy and a shift in mindset that marketing is more than a support function. Marketing is no longer a cost center but drives business transformation. As a result, marketing organizations should consistently have a seat the business table (and at the C-suite and board level) to drive digital transformation conversations, its value proposition to the company, and why its budget should grow.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">To sum up, digital marketing and heightened customer expectations are changing how the modern marketing organization is structured. Marketing has become more holistic, aligns more closely with the business strategy, and is responsible for the overall customer experience. One company to learn from is Target. They built a successful digital marketing department. They did not put their marketing teams into groups or silos. Instead, they brought everyone together as one big marketing team. This helped Target tell a cohesive brand story and attract top talent. An example we can all learn from.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Matthew Royse is the director of marketing communications for Forsythe Technology, one of the largest independent IT integrators in North America. He has more than 15 years of experience in marketing and communications, working in many different industries, including financial services, technology, media and entertainment.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>At Forsythe Technology, Matthew oversees all content marketing and social media initiatives internally and externally, across multiple platforms and formats to drive sales, engagement, retention, leads and positive behavior with clients, partners, analysts and employees. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Matthew currently teaches a social media class for students in Duke's Event Development Certification program. He has spoken about social media and content marketing at numerous industry and regional events.</i></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15468820141554569214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675956657768352491.post-19959635938781797202016-06-06T02:52:00.000-07:002016-06-21T04:56:16.709-07:00Optimizing the Marketing Machine<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>By Heather Caouette</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Marketing and Public Relations </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You know the drill; get more results with a smaller budget. With these mandates, showing a campaign’s business impact is imperative. There are several methods you can employ to optimize your marketing department and show real value. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">First, make sure marketing initiatives align with business goals. There are multiple avenues marketers can take and CEOs are impressed when the one you choose aids the current goals of the business. Prioritizing tasks in this way will also help manage your efforts in an impactful way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Once your programs sync with what is driving your company, it is essential that marketing efforts speak to your customers’ motivations. It does not matter how beautifully crafted your campaign or message is. Any project that does not speak to what influences your customer will fall flat. As B2B marketers, we tend to think product-centrally and focus on solutions. Go beyond that. What keeps your customers up at night? What inspires them? You need to understand these motivators before you can make the link to how your offerings can help. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Build Brand Ambassadors</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Addressing the vulnerabilities of your audience will also help develop customer advocates and extend word of mouth – arguably the most efficient and beneficial form of marketing. A recent Nielsen’s Harris Poll Online found that more than 80% of Americans seek recommendations when making any kind of purchase<sup>1</sup>. Most people trust their peers more than company messaging so hearing the virtues of your solution from a colleague will go far in establishing your credibility. Once you are delivering a solid solution, exceptional customer service and conducting business as a true partner, customers will be open to acting as brand ambassadors. Build and engage a captive audience of your customers, partners and thought leaders.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When engaging with current and potential clients, be aware that some channels that have been successful in the consumer space can also be brought into the B2B space. Social media is one example. Businesses are made of people that are on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. You need to get your message to the people where they are and not wait around hoping they find you. That said, tread carefully to put your efforts in the channels that can offer the greatest reward as some may be a better fit than others. A channel that makes sense for one industry may not work for another. Do not get caught up in the tool – focus on the message and desired outcome. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Mobile Matters</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">According to an April 27, 2016 post by Smart Insights<sup>2</sup>, mobile use grows an average of 58% year over year. Most people now consume information on mobile devices with that trend rapidly accelerating, yet many B2B companies do not have a clear strategy to leverage this mobile engagement. Ensure that viewers can move seamlessly between devices and that the experience is consistent regardless of whether they find you on a desktop, tablet or phone. Find ways to align your offline marketing such as tradeshows with mobile, which in addition to improving the user experience, will give you additional analytics to measure initiatives that are more difficult to quantify. </span>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">All of these approaches require one thing that is constantly mentioned but there is never enough of – content. You will never catch up if you create new pieces for every program or medium. Repurposing content is key to keeping the pipeline full while maintaining a budget. A podcast, for example, can be reborn as a case study, web content, blog post and social media messaging. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Keeping in mind customer preferences regarding motivations and channels, and finding multiple uses for fresh content will deliver true value to your business. By making sure these tie into clear business objectives, you can deliver a business <i>for </i>business connection instead of just a business to business one. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Heather Caouette helps develop and execute integrated marketing activities globally at eClinicalWorks. Previously, as a Senior Account Executive with Schwartz Communications, she assisted a variety of technology innovators in meeting their public relations goals. Heather holds a Bachelor of Science in Communication from Boston University and a Master of Business Administration in Finance from Bentley University. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">1 http://www.business2community.com/marketing/numbers-dont-lie-2016-nielsen-study-revealed-referrals-01477256#h3ArXTPfQoJ7yLd5.99</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">2 http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-analytics/mobile-marketing-statistics/</span><br />
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