Scott Heimes, Chief Marketing Officer at Zipwhip, discusses how two-way text messaging can be an extremely effective way to communicate with your customers in an interview on the B2B Growth Podcast:

76% of Consumers Have Received Text From Businesses

Over 76 percent of consumers have received some kind of text from a business. The most common are appointment reminders or bank alerts. This really just scratches the surface. Texting has so many applications beyond just alerts and reminders. There are sales and marketing, discount coupons and giveaways, customer support and service, recruiting and staffing, and internal communications at places like educational institutions. It’s so new and businesses are continuing to innovate in this medium. There are a lot of powerful use cases for businesses.

We have over 30,000 businesses using our software today. They range from very small businesses like yoga studios or lawn care services all the way up to multi-billion dollar insurance companies that are using our solution in their claim call centers. Industries include financial services, staffing and recruiting, healthcare, legal, and more. We have 156 professional sports teams that use our solution. They use it for ticket sales and customer service. There are lots of fitness gyms, radio and TV stations that use our text solution as well. It really does run the gamut of anybody that wants to communicate with their customers via this preferred medium.

Report Shows Increasing Use of Texting by Businesses

I just talked to the Director of Communications for the Sound Transit Authority, the public transit authority in Seattle, who uses our solution. They publish an 800 number to text or call when people see problems on the trains. Rather than get on the phone and calling, more and more people are texting those alerts. It’s really an interesting use case. Another one is during a recent hurricane down in Houston we had an insurance agent that was using our software to communicate with all of his customers in the area because the phone lines were largely down. Texting was working well to create engagement and communication during those tough times.

We recently created a report called the State of Texting which is a deep research study that highlights the adoption curve of text messaging as a business communication tool. It identifies how many consumers are already being texted by businesses as well as many other key insights and trends. One of the things we saw was that there are a lot of one-way texting tools where you get an alert from your doctor’s office, for instance, but you can’t respond to it. It was actually fired off by a CRM using an API that was just one way.

Text is a Great Way to Increase Engagement

Increasingly, consumers would prefer to be able to respond to those texts and have an actual interaction with a human on the other side to either reschedual that appointment or alert them that they are going to be five minutes late or something like that. We are seeing a trend where people want to be able to respond to texts and have an interaction as opposed to continuing to be one way.

For businesses, the communication channels of email and phone are just becoming less and less effective. Text is a great way to increase your engagement and responsiveness with consumers. They’ll actually respond to a text. One of the things we are doing as a company is everything we can to maintain the purity of the texting medium to make sure that spam doesn’t leak its way into this channel.

>> Listen to the complete interview with Zipwhip CMO Scott Heimes on the B2B Growth podcast.

These roles are essential to the success and the working of any business, as achieving that success is their responsibility and a big part of their job description. In essence, the job of a senior executive is to create strategies and enforce them across the entire organization.

Only people with vast experience and proven leadership skills can be the ones suitable for a C-Suite position. In addition to knowledge and technical abilities, it is important they have a vision that allows them to take multiple perspectives when dealing with a work-related issue.

It’s worth mentioning that the senior executive positions are highly stressful jobs with around-the-clock work hours. For this reason, their compensations are quite rewarding and motivating.

C-Suite Executives Explained

When discussing the C-Suite, there are four positions that are the most prominent and most known:

●  CEO – Chief Executive Officer.

●  CFO – Chief Financial Officer.

●  COO – Chief Operating Officer.

●  CIO – Chief Information Officer.

However, besides these four, there are other chief positions that are a part of the C-Suite team:

●  CCO – Chief Compliance Officer.

●  CHRM – Chief Human Resources Manager.

●  CSO – Chief Security Officer.

●  CGO – Chief Green Officer.

●  CAO – Chief Analytics Officer.

●  CMO – Chief Marketing Officer.

●  CDO – Chief Data Officer.

Here are short summaries regarding some of the C-Suite positions:

CEO

The CEO is typically the highest position in the company. The person who has the position is usually the face of the company and speaks to the public in its name. However, this doesn’t mean that the CEO is calling all the shots by themselves. For most major decisions, the CEO consults with all the other chief officers in the organization and relies on their insights.

There is no formal education that is specifically required for the CEO position and successful workers from any background can potentially reach it. What most CEOs have in common though is great judgment and leadership capabilities.

CFO

The position at the top of the financial hierarchy in an organization is the CFO. Unlike the CEO, the CFO has to come from a financial background and have a significant understanding of finances and economics. The CFO role and responsibilities include things like portfolio management, performing financial analysis, conducting research for investment opportunities, and even accounting.

Additionally, staying up to date with the worldwide economy and maintaining an overall global perspective are important qualities for CFOs. In many organizational processes like investment decision-making and assessment of risks, the CEO and the CFO work together.

COO

The COO position serves as the extended hand of the CEO. COOs report directly and only to CEOs and are second in command in the company. They are responsible for the daily operations and administrative tasks across the entire organization. Some of the most important traits for COOs are good managerial abilities, an analytical mind, and strong communication.

There are some other terms that refer to this position that might be more popular than COO like “vice president” or “operations director”. More often than not, COOs work closely with the CEO, and they are the best candidate to take their place once the CEO steps down.

CIO

Also known as CTO, chief technology officers are the executives responsible for computer technology and its implementation, management, and usability within an organization. In the past, this position was not considered as important as the others in the C-Suite. However, technology has taken such an essential part in the workplace, that CIOs nowadays are among the top five executives of any company.

Business analysis, programming, management, and knowledge of mapping are the key skills that any CIO should possess. CIO’s responsibilities also include providing input into critical processes like risk management, developing business strategies, and other financial activities.

Conclusion

In addition to creating strategies and making sure that the daily operations are running smoothly the C-Suite is important for the future of the company. Executives need to constantly come up with new ideas and find new ways for the business to grow. This includes creating new business models, introducing new products, and any other way of pursuing innovation that will help the company to expand.

See below for highlights from Rand’s thoughts on the changing SEO landscape:

There is definitely this problem in the SEO space where the amount of opportunity in SEO (is lessened), because of Google entering all these business sectors and taking away of a lot of the clicks and trying to solve the searchers’ query before they ever click.

This means that you just don’t have as much opportunity to earn search clicks from this search engine anymore.

Branded Search Queries

How can we overcome that? I think the answer in SEO is pretty clear, which is the one thing that Google is not taking away from us, branded search queries. If somebody searches for StatBid or they search for Moz or they search for the North Face, that is a searcher telling Google to take me to this companies website. That’s a very very powerful undeniable signal that they want to reach your site. You’re getting 90% plus click-through rates on those.

If you can increase the number of people searching for your brand instead of drawing a smaller and smaller percentage of the people who search for outdoor jackets, because Google’s placing all these ads above the fold and trying to say these are the best outdoor jackets and having an instant answer and a featured snippet and all this type of stuff, yeah that’s that’s a big win.

Combining Classic SEO with New Stuff

I think for CMO’s and for marketing departments it’s going to be a combination of classic skill sets in SEO. First, how do we rank? How do we make sure that our site is technically optimized? How do we make sure that we’re doing good keyword research and keyword targeting? How do we create good content around all these things and solve searchers problems?

Then I think it’s also going to be some new forms of marketing that SEO’s are not generally familiar with, at least not historically. Those are things like creative that draws attention and eyeballs and interest. I think it’s a lot of storytelling. Great brands are built on the back of great storytelling and that is traditionally a big weak spot for SEO.

SEO Teams Need to Get Retooled

So yeah, I think there’s going to be a combination of new and old. That could mean that some (SEO & marketing) teams need to get retooled or new people need to be added. It could mean that agencies will have to upgrade those practices and I’ve already seen some agencies in the SEO world start to do that. I think serving existing demand is going to long-term not be as exciting as creating more demand.

After decades of peering into the cosmos, the Hubble Space Telescope is experiencing a major computer issue and is running in safe mode.

On June 13, NASA detected a problem when Hubble’s computer halted. Attempts to restart it failed, with a degrading memory module identified as the problem. Further attempts to bring the memory module online also failed.

NASA says the computer running Hubble’s instruments is a 1980s computer, with a full backup system as well. There are four memory modules that either computer can access, but attempts to have the primary computer switch to the backup modules failed.

When the operations team attempted to switch to a back-up memory module, however, the command to initiate the backup module failed to complete. Another attempt was conducted on both modules Thursday evening to obtain more diagnostic information while again trying to bring those memory modules online. However, those attempts were not successful.

It remains to be seen if NASA engineers will need to switch to the backup computer, but the longer the issue persists the more likely the switch will happen.

It is fully redundant in that a second computer, along with its associated hardware, exists on orbit that can be switched over to in the event of a problem. Both computers can access and use any of four independent memory modules, which each contain 64K of Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) memory. The payload computer uses only one memory module operationally at a time, with the other three serving as backups.

If engineers are not able to fix the problem remotely, NASA may need to send astronauts to the telescope to fix it.

T-Mobile has announced it is partnering with SiriusXM to offer access to an enhanced Pandora music experience for its wireless customers.

Starting next week, as part of its T-Mobile Tuesdays deals, the wireless carrier is offering free access to an enhanced version of Pandora’s streaming music service, exclusive to T-Mobile customers. The new enhanced service will include:

• Ad-free stations each weekend.
• Special “Top Tracks” stations powered by Pandora’s parent company SiriusXM. The stations will feature songs curated from popular SiriusXM channels.
• Exclusive access to SiriusXM original podcasts.
• Early access to SiriusXM podcasts on Pandora.

“Pandora and T-Mobile have built on our longstanding relationship to create a unique new way for T-Mobile customers to discover, share, and listen to the music and podcasts they love most,” said Denise Karkos, CMO of SiriusXM. “We’ve combined Pandora’s personalized listening experience with access to a special selection of must-hear SiriusXM audio entertainment, along with ad-free radio weekends, to deliver even more for T-Mobile customers.”

“We’re rolling out the magenta carpet once again for T-Mobile customers giving more free benefits and even more value through partnerships with today’s best brands,” said T-Mobile CMO Matt Staneff. “Now more than ever, we recognize the power that music has to connect communities. Today marks another exciting step in our relationship with Pandora, offering T-Mobile customers a new, supercharged version of a brand they already love. At T-Mobile, it’s about getting more value on us — just for being with us.”

Katrina Lake, founder, and CEO of Stitch Fix discussed their current marketing strategy on “Squawk Alley” earlier today:

Stitch Fix Enters the UK Market

I’m excited about heading into the UK. What we see in Stitch Fix Mens has given us a lot of confidence as we think about a new client base and a new set of inventory. We are now coming up on the two year anniversary of Stitch Fix Mens and now that we are in a place where that business is more mature and contributing to the business you can actually see it in our gross margin. We had the highest gross margin this quarter than we had in the last six quarters.

Then to add kids and now to add the UK we are really excited about planting those seeds. I think that the UK it is so important in the business of personalization which ours is. We understand each client and understand what each client is looking for.

There’s a lot of investment in localization, of localizing stylists, of bringing on merchants who understand the market and are buying from brands that our clients in the UK will expect. All of that localization definitely requires more work but we think really sets us up for greater success.

Revenue Per Client is Up

We are really excited about seeing revenue per client higher this quarter. What that means is we have high-quality clients that are spending more with us. Right now is a great time to see that because Men’s is getting to a place where we see greater maturity in that business. Kids, our newest business, has not blended into those client numbers yet.

Internally, figuring out how we can capture more wallet share and how we can make sure we are getting clients more what they love and capturing more of that revenue per client is a really big effort for us.

We Are Still Early in Our Marketing Journey

We are still early in the journey and we have learned a lot in the last couple of years on the marketing front. We’ve brought channels in-house. We have a lot of efforts around diversifying our channels. In the last quarter, we had national TV off for 10 of the 13 weeks which really helped us understand regional impacts, how much TV is adding directly and much it is helping our other channels.

We already knew that TV was an important part of the mix, but it really validated those learnings. It definitely helped us to plan in an accurate way going forward. That being said, even on the TV front, there is still a lot of opportunities as we think about diversification and different tactics.

Planning Brand Marketing Push Soon

What we haven’t done any of to date is brand marketing. We have a CMO who has been in the role for three or four months and as we are able to hone that marketing muscle and learn more about what’s working and what’s not working brand marketing is actually going to be another tactic that will be really helpful. This will not just be for activating and generating awareness but also driving more reengagement and driving retention.

We are part way on the journey on the marketing front but we are still really early. There’s still a lot of the addressable market out there, our awareness is still really really low. We are really excited how much more opportunity there is on the marketing front.  

Marketing Week recently asked several prominent marketers how they ensure their voice is heard by the rest of the C-suite:

Alex Naylor, Marketing Director, Barclaycard

The key thing is to talk to them about how you can help them achieve their objectives rather than trying to convince them to help you achieve yours. Many people approach marketing with an open mouth but in reality, many people don’t understand it. Business leaders see it as a tax on their business. The role of a marketing leader is to help them understand that marketing is an enabler that helps them achieve their business objectives and their business strategy. Once they see it as something they own then they’ll be prepared to invest in it.

Zaid Al-Qassab, CMO, BT Group

The secret to having your voice heard in the C-suite is caring passionately about what all the other people around the table do. If you’re myopically focused on just the marketing then you won’t be taken seriously. You need to understand everything about the finances of the business, about how the sales channels are working, about the HR problems, and the organizational opportunities. You need to understand the whole thing.

Debrah Dolce, SVP, Group Brand & Marketing Director, TJX Europe

I think to be effective in the C-suite, clearly, it’s going to be about relationships and a business approach that can showcase the impact that marketing can have on the commercial side of the business as well as the long-term brand building and customer engagement that we’re obviously all responsible for.

For me, it would very much be about the partnership and the relationships within the C-suite. As the world becomes more connected and more integrated I see that only becoming more and more important. To function as a high-performing exec team it’s going to take everybody to care about the customer. I think that’ll be critical for all marketers moving forwards to share that passion.

Keith Weed, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Unilever

There is no stainable growth other than consumer or customer demand-led growth and marketers should be at the core of consumer demand-led growth. If you can do that you can tell the people around the table where the growth is coming from. I often joke with my CFO, he counts where the money’s going, I say where the money’s coming from, and that’s important for business.

Troy Warfield, President, Topgolf International

The way marketing leaders can ensure that their voices are heard in the C-suite, number one is they’ve got to be able to talk the language. So really understand what the business is about, understand finance, and then think about you know what is core to making that business grow. If you can combine all those three you’ll have a great voice in the C-suite.

Tony Miller, VP, Digital Marketing & CRM, EMEA, Disney

In order to make our marketing leaders’ voice heard to the rest of the C-suite group it’s about really open dialogue, being honest with your peers, and having the ability to have debate and encourage debate and discussion around things that are happening in the industry and specifically within your brand and your sector.

I think marketers today need to ensure that they have everything backed up through data and insight, whether it’s about kind of proving return on investment of that marketing value through brand engagement or customer satisfaction or sales and return on investment. Having the data and letting that help speak and guide those conversations.

John Rudaizky, Partner, Global Brand and Marketing Leader, EY

I would say from point of view, how does your marketing and your brand contribute to the growth agenda? You really have to work hard at making sure that that’s clear. Most businesses are looking at growing through very disruptive times at the moment. The next thing is from a digital transformation point of view, I think marketing has never been more relevant in the boardroom.

When you think about the total customer experience being changed through digital and technology, marketing has probably got the best ever moment in time to have a seat in that conversation. Thirdly, I’d say trust, every business is going through change and if you think about digital things reputations can be affected overnight. From a brand point of view, marketing and brands can play an active role in helping the boardroom navigate through these disruptive times.

Ed Bastian, CEO of Delta Air Lines, discusses the impact of technology and innovation on Delta’s operations, customers, and employees, in an interview by Kara Swisher at the 2019 Code Conference:

Predictive Technology Dramatically Lowering Maintenance Cancellations

The data is already there. Yes, the new variants are throwing off more data. The problem we have with a lot of the aircraft and the engine data that’s being produced is trying to figure out what you do with it, what’s relevant, what’s the real meaning behind it? We’ve got amazing predictive maintenance technologies that we’ve already at Delta deployed. We run the best maintenance operation in the world.

Ten years ago we bought Northwest Airlines and we had a really difficult year in our first year of integration. We had 6,000 cancellations due to maintenance alone in that year. In one year, in 2010. This past year we had 60 the entire year, a 99 percent reduction in maintenance cancels. No airline the world can talk to those types of numbers. It tells you that it’s predictive technology and engine technology. We’re using the data. I don’t know what more data we’re going to get to. You’re not going to get better than 60 in a year. We’re already pretty skilled in that knowledge set.

Digital Changes the Game Entirely

There’s a lot we can improve (with the consumer experience). I’ll tell you that we are within our peer set doing a great job as we’re innovating. The thing we had to do as a 95-year-old company is that we had to build the foundation. We’d spent several years building the infrastructure, the architecture, and being able to get at the data. It was truly an incredible maze of spaghetti thrown all around the company with all the legacy systems. We’re bringing the digital technologies almost on a weekly basis now into the market.

Our Fly Delta app is one of the best-rated airline apps out there and will get better. There’s more we can do. The big thing you’re going to see us do is to bring the technologies, not just into the hands of the customers going mobile in terms of controlling your experience with Delta, but into the hands of our employees. This is so that our flight attendants, our pilots, our gate agents, our people in reservations and in maintenance, can actually start to interact more efficiently with each other and with customers to continue to run an even better operation. Digital changes the game entirely.

We Are Not a Technology Company At Its Core

As we continue to expand our technology with digital and being able to let our consumers know more about us so we can know more about them and be able to engage in a deeper relationship, we have to maintain that same level of trust and care that we have with putting you in the sky as compared to protecting your private identity and your data.

We have a lot of people looking at all the technologies that we’re thinking about rolling out making certain that they comply with all privacy laws. We’re not a technology company at its core. We’re not ever marketing the data or selling the data but we still want to make certain that we’re adhering to those same privacy standards.

The Flight Experience Continues To Get Better

The flight experience continues to get better. Our operational performance has been incredible. We just ended this past weekend a run where we had over 40 days in a row without a cancellation around the world. These are running levels of excellence and performance that we’ve never seen. The flying experience is getting to a point where value for money is also significant because consumers today are paying 40 percent in real dollars less than they did 20 years ago for the price of tickets.

The deregulation of our industry back in the 1980s has worked and democratized travel and it has brought people out. I never stepped foot on a plane before I was 25 years old. How I ever got this job I’m still not quite sure. Flying wasn’t affordable. It wasn’t something I did when we grew up now. Our kids think you are a dinosaur if you don’t fly.

The Big Change Is Going To Be In The Airports

I think the big change is going to be in the airports going forward. The airport’s going to look significantly different. We’re going to try to take the stress out of the airports. One of the things about airports, we’ve got to remember, these were built 50, 60, or 70 years ago, for an era that has long past us. So volumes, security apparatus, even the physical layouts. Back then people would come to the airports to look at the marvel of the front head house we call it, the front door, or the artwork.

When did you ever spend time in the front of an airport? You never go there. Now you just go directly to security. You don’t even stop at the counter, you’ve got your mobile. But all of our physical layout is up front. We’ve got to flip it around and put our physical layout back by the gates where people want to get to. We need to make that front almost the security, getting into the property, to begin with.

You’re Going To See a Very Different Boarding Process

You’re going to see a very different boarding process. That’s the other tremendous stress. This is where you see people looking to line up and everyone wants to get on at the same time and most of their earthly belongings. Why does anyone want to sit in an airline seat longer than they have to? People don’t, but they want to get on board and they want to make sure their property gets on board with them. If you have confidence (with RFID technology, which we’ve now rolled out) that your bag will be there waiting for you when you get to the baggage area at the end of the flight, would you really try to carry that bag on?

We’re looking at even taking the boarding cues out, taking the podiums out. With podiums it just gives people reason to line. What if there are no podiums? We will have chairs so people can sit down and agents with technology in their hands. With the digital technology that I’m talking about, they can serve as a host or hostess rather than a ticket taker. That’s how you build relationships. That’s what we’re designing.

5G Is Going To Be a Big Deal For Us In The Airports

We’re experimenting with it but it’s knowing that the agents are out there with the technology in their hand and that’s who you need to talk to. These people will be trained to try to scoop up bags if there are bags that can be checked, but again it’s going to take some time. There has to be confidence that the technology works and it’s being delivered on. We put the technology in and there are still teething pains. A lot of it is going to be around network bandwidth. 5G is going to be a big deal for us in the airports. We actually will have the Wi-Fi capabilities to actually implement this at the level of fidelity that we’re looking to create.

With the RFID technology that we have today, we have scanners out there, we have sensors. They’ll pick up the bags that will be going on to the belt loader. The belt loader is trained that if a bag is going to the wrong destination it will stop the belt loader. It will cause the gate agent or the ramp agent to go look at it and figure out where that tag is and get it onto the right plane. It will also be able to track it. You can track your bag on the Fly Delta app, you’ll know where it is. You’ll see it get to the baggage claim before you do. It will tell you what baggage area you need to go to. That what we’re creating for the future and technology is going to be critical in getting there.

At Salesforce Dreamforce, Stephanie Buscemi, CMO of Salesforce, and Susan Prescott, Vice President Product Marketing at Apple discussed how mobile is changing the world of marketing. In particular, how mobility is setting new standards for customer expectations and how the is impacting the customer experience.

Apples VP of Product Marketing, Susan Prescott, explains:

An opportunity from a marketing point of view with mobility and with the technologies, the information you have about customers in the cloud and the devices that we have in the hands of customers, is the ability to personalize it. Rather than a marketing world where it’s just about driving awareness and trying to drive a generic action you have the opportunity that will help you deliver an even better more personal experience understanding things about that user.

From a marketing point of view, the power of combining the Salesforce Cloud and all of the things that are all of the insights and information that are there together with the intuitive familiar experience of the ubiquitous device that brings information to your fingertips all the time, it’s so powerful. This idea of having information when you need it, where you need it, on the device you have with you, is powerful.

As a consumer, obviously, I have that when I walk in a store I can have information right on my phone about items in the store, some of which have smart tagging so I can see the availability of the item and colors it comes in. Once the consumers have that kind of information we have to be smart as marketers to help them take the next step and not just feed them with generic awareness tools.

We as marketers have the opportunity to leverage all of that into more personalized experiences that benefit the user and also can benefit businesses. The idea of mobility isn’t just that it’s fun and easy, it’s that it’s creating value, value for the consumer, value for the business, and value for the customer.

Edge computing moves processes closer to where data is being collected and used, rather than sending it to a data center for processing. Thanks to 5G, edge computing stands to usher in a whole new era of on or near-premise computing, significantly speeding up the speed and latency of critical and intensive operations.

The partnership will allow Google Cloud to deliver technologies and capabilities to companies using AT&T’s 5G network. These technologies include artificial intelligence, machine learning, data and analytics, Kubernetes and more.

“We are delighted to work with AT&T, a 5G leader, to help enterprises and the industry harness the potential of 5G,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud. “Our co-innovation with AT&T aims to bring a multitude of 5G and Edge Computing solutions to address a diversity of use cases, driving real business value in industries like retail, manufacturing, gaming and more. We are deeply committed to helping drive positive business outcomes for enterprises by working with AT&T on 5G.”

“We’re working with Google Cloud to deliver the next generation of cloud services,” said Mo Katibeh, EVP and CMO, AT&T Business. “Combining AT&T’s network edge, including 5G, with Google Cloud’s edge compute technologies can unlock the cloud’s true potential. This work is bringing us closer to a reality where cloud and edge technologies give businesses the tools to create a whole new world of experiences for their customers.”

The announcement is another in a string of wins for Google Cloud as it works to take on AWS and Microsoft.

It’s not about advertising either, it’s about being part of the conversation, being a brand that matters. Here are selected excerpts from Gil’s talk below that highlight this challenge:

The Only Metric that Matters Is Sales

The only metric that matters today is sales. Most of us, if not all of us, know that the reason why we’re on social media is that we want to drive more revenue for our businesses. You go to any CMO or CEO and for them, social media is just nice to have. The reality is that social media is the lifeline between you and your customers.

Oftentimes, we see metrics being referred to as reach, clicks, impressions, but the only metric that really matters is the sale.

I often get asked by businesses and marketers, should I be on Instagram, Snapchat, or something else? My answer to them is very simple, go where your audience is. Each one of these social networks gives you reach and helps put you in front of people who are potential buyers or existing buyers from your brand or your competition. If you are targeting millennials, Snapchat and Instagram might be good to focus on.

Simply think about your business and go where your audience is.

Revise Strategy from One-To-Many to One-To-One

We’re talking about sales, we’re talking about driving revenue. Since the beginning of time sales has always been one-on-one. I think the biggest mistake that marketers are making is they think I’m going to get on social media and I’m gonna have access to reach all of these people. I have all of these followers, but the reality is that most people are not paying attention to the content that you’re posting. This is why you should revise your strategy from being about one-to-many but more one-to-one, and you should stop focusing on the numbers.

Recently, I was working with a client that said to me, we have 30 million social media followers globally but we’re reaching a very small percentage. I looked at the CMO and said, you don’t have 30 million followers, in reality, you have like 300 or less. Their jaw dropped and they were shocked because the reality is that you can’t touch everyone that’s out there.

Social media operates in real time, and with the way content moves, content is relevant today and it’s irrelevant 15 seconds from now.

Millennials Don’t Want to be Sold, They Want to be Engaged

Millennials don’t want to be sold, they want to be engaged. Millennials are really at the forefront of a lot of what we do. For example, I work a lot with real estate agents and they often say that you have to look at the data of who is your target buyer. In the case of realtors, 30 years old is the average age of a first-time homebuyer. You’re not going to reach that customer sending them direct mail.

However, if you run Facebook Ads, if you have any sort of presence in social meeting, you can find a way to get in front of them then. You have a much higher likelihood of promoting your brand and getting that lead. The same thing applies to most businesses.

Go Where Your Customers Are… the Mobile Phone

I work with both B2B and B2C and you have to go where the current is, you have to go where the customers are. The reality is this is your audience today. People aren’t paying attention to really what’s in front of them besides their cell phone.

I’m sure if you go to any boardroom meeting today and you look around, what do people do when they show up, they put their iPhone first thing in front of them.

When I was working at Winn-Dixie back in 2014, we’re doing this campaign where we’re trying to take market share away from Walmart, Target, Burger King and McDonald’s, I made a comment to our CMO at the time. I said why are we focusing so much on doing direct mail at home marketing and instead, why aren’t we doing SMS and push notification ads? Why aren’t we reaching people on the device that they go to the bathroom with and that they use all the time?

We use cell phones for virtually everything that we do, so guess what, the light bulb has to go off if people are using this device all the time and they live by it your marketing has to now appeal to the device itself.

It was funny because in 2014 that CMO looked at me and says huh, SMS is never gonna take off, mobile marketing is never gonna take off!

Marketing is Like Finding Your Match on Tender

You’ve got this high propensity of customers, Millennials, they’re all using social media. I think the biggest challenge that we all face is how do we reach people at the right time and ensure that our content resonates with them? This is why I say that marketing is like finding your match on Tinder.

Business marketing is very much like dating. You’ve got a lot of people out there in this digital ocean and if your content is not appealing to that audience then they’re gonna keep swiping.

Image Source: Sony Corporation

The Vision-S is a prototype designed to showcase Sony’s technical prowess, and the company has not stated whether it has any plans to produce the vehicle. Even as a prototype, however, the Vision-S is an impressive accomplishment. The car has 33 sensors—13 more than a Tesla—“including CMOS image sensors and ToF sensors are embedded within the vehicle, in order to detect and recognize people and objects inside and outside the car, and provide highly advanced driving support.”

Safety is front-and-center, with the “Safety Cocoon.” Safety Cocoon is a safe-zone concept designed to monitor 360 degrees to help the driver avoid potential hazards before it’s too late.

Image Source: Sony Corporation

When it comes to creature comforts, “Sony’s ‘360 Reality Audio’ provides a deep and immersive audio experience through speakers built into each seat to encapsulates passengers in sound. The front seats face a panoramic screen on which rich and diverse content can be enjoyed through an intuitive user interface.”

While the Vision-S is meant to showcase Sony’s mobile and electric capabilities, the prototype has already turned heads. Taking a car from prototype to roadworthy vehicle, reliable enough to meet drivers’ demands, is easier said than done. If enough people push for it, however, who knows what Sony may ultimately do.

There are always new ideas and products to learn about at INBOUND, and sometimes that interaction is what gets people there in the first place.

“This was the first year that we were able to let our customers pick what was on the announcement list,” says Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP of Marketing at HubSpot. “We were able to announce a slew of improvements like attribution reporting for marketers — the thing that allows you to say that this social media post or this video or this email actually contributed to revenue — you are able to draw the line down all the way to dollars. You’re able to justify your work and to get credit for it.”

“Then there was advocacy automation,” says Anderson. “Our customers are our best marketers. You go out there and trust a friend for a recommendation on what to buy, and this helps you to surface customers who are really happy. Then you can ask those customers to share their experiences on review sites. On the inverse, you can also find customers who are less happy and reach out to find why they aren’t happy and try to turn that around. Customers are what really build momentum for your business, and by getting really smart and tailored around who’s doing well and who’s not we can then empower those people.”

LinkedIn and Customer Experience at INBOUND

Bringing marketing inline with sales is a key feature of this event. These are often two parts of a business that don’t always agree, so forming new channels to keep them in line with each other can lead to greater business success. In the LinkedIn Lounge, this was the top priority.

“At a high level we are really talking about how sales and marketing come together to create better customer experiences to drive business growth forward,” says Kelly Mcettrick Head of Adtech Channel Sales for LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. “On the marketing side, it’s really about getting started with your page and business presence on LinkedIn to establish that foundation. Then, how do you really get started with ads to accelerate that foundation that you have built. So we have a lot of programming about lead generation, branding, and all those important parts for building successful long-term sustainable businesses. Then we talk about how to tie that back to your sales team to make those things work together as core pillars of business.”

“I particularly like our lounge space that we have created, but I also like how when Inbound creates their content and you look at the sessions they have created they are doing a really great job of bringing in practitioners on the marketing front but also inspirational speakers to talk about how marketing can better connect with their customers,” says Kaitlin Stich, Partner Marketing Lead for LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. “That’s incredibly valuable and they bring all types of industry experts to do that — my favorite is Chip and Joanna Gaines on Friday — I think bringing in speakers like that highlights the opportunity for businesses to be more conversational with their customers. That is really what this conference is about and that’s some of the value that LinkedIn is bringing with the products we are demonstrating here.”

Lessons From INBOUND 2019

This conference has proven to be especially valuable to marketers and general businesspeople over the years, and each year’s offerings seem to increase in value. Here’s what some other participants had to say about INBOUND 2019:

“There is so much new technology being rolled out every single day and sometimes it’s overwhelming,” says Tayla Andrè, Speaker, Media personality, and Real estate agent.

“These past four days really put in perspective how to properly roll out content that will increase my productivity visibility and connectivity to my followers.”

“The value of INBOUND for us is multifaceted,” says Nili Molvin Zaharony, Co-Founder and CMO of Penguin Strategies, HubSpot Diamond Agency Partner. “Over the course of four days, we are able to expand our agency’s offerings with new partnerships, share knowledge with other marketers as speakers, learn from our peers, and meet 1:1 with members of HubSpot’s executive staff to share ideas that directly translate into action and improvements. It is a truly unique opportunity for us to grow our business and share with the marketing community.”

“I have attended many conferences in social media marketing,” Says Adobe Education Leader and Founder of Classroom Without Walls, Dr. Ai-Addyson Zhang. “However, few truly create a wow-experience. Inbound is such an exceptional conference that educates, entertains, and inspires! I love the diverse range of speakers that come from a variety of backgrounds. You learn a lot about social media and digital marketing, but you also feel so inspired by the individuals who have made a mark in their industry. I especially love how HubSpot and HubSpot Academy are making an effort to diversify their selection of speakers and to walk their talk of the importance of diversity. Kudos to INBOUND19. I cannot wait for INBOUND20.”

Photos Courtesy of HubSpot

Matt Derella, Global Vice President, Revenue and Content Partnerships for Twitter, discussed why Twitter is valuable for advertisers on CNBC at Advertising Week in New York:

Twitter Video Ads Now Generate Over 50% of Revenue

If you look back to our previous quarter our ads business is incredibly strong right now growing over 27 percent year-on-year and its broad-based all around the world. I think that’s because we’re continuing to innovate and bring new products to bear. Video, in particular, is now over 50 percent of our revenue and marketers are getting great results from using it.

I was just on stage here at AdWeek sitting down with the head of digital at Nestle and he’s talking about the fact that two of his biggest brands,  DiGiorno and Lean Cuisine, Twitter was the number one platform among social platforms for return investment. As long as the results are there we’re going to continue to grow our business with our customers and continue to earn their trust.

We Want to be Really Transparent About Political Ads

Well, being completely transparent, I think Jack Dorsey (Twitter CEO) modeled this when he went to DC and actually talked to the regulators and the congressmen. We want to be really transparent about what we’re doing. There are some serious issues facing all services that are global in nature like ours we’ve taken some very tangible action just in the last few months.

You’ve heard about our Ad Transparency Center. This is a searchable database where anybody can go and see all the political advertising on Twitter and who is funding it. We’ve also introduced labels around all the political advertising so they’re clearly demarcated so you know and have trust in where that message is coming from.

Lastly, just on spam, we’re doing more than we ever have. Two times the amount of spam is being taken off the platform compared to just a year ago. This is what we’re talking to marketers about and content partners about to continue to get better.

Brands Can Target Very Specific Conversations

A big part of philosophically how we designed the platform is so that control goes in the hands of the advertiser. We have targeting that allows you to target just specific conversations. If you’re a brand who wants to connect with the NBA and all the conversation having around that that’s something that our tools allow to do.

I’m in charge of content partnerships and our content business has been flourishing. We’re helping partners grow their business. One of the great things about how we designed it is that marketers can actually choose the specific content that they want to align with and ensure that brand safety and brand alignment that’s so important for them.

We’ve Never Been More Clear About What is Our Superpower

The primary driver of everything we do is to help serve that public conversation that’s so unique to Twitter. Great content, whether it’s the World Cup highlights, that we had every single goal here in the US from the World Cup with Fox, is a great place for us to get video and bring that public conversation around it and it’s great for consumers. It also happens to be terrific for marketers who want to align with that passion here at Advertising Week.

I think for Twitter we’ve never been more clear about what is our superpower, we have the most valuable audiences when they’re most receptive. If you’re going to launch something new Twitter is the place to start because we have those valuable audiences when they are the most receptive. That’s the message we’ve been going with and we have the data to back it up. I think we have a very defensible position going forward with marketers.

We have to focus on the long-term and really what’s been incredibly encouraging is hearing from some of the most important influential CMO’s around the world supporting us as we make the decision to focus on the health of the service in the long term. Some of the decisions that we’re making, the hard decisions that might impact short-term metrics, but ultimately it’ll be the right thing for the platform.

Pinterest has become more than just a visual search platform. It’s more of a search engine now where prospective customers go to look for products. Statistics have revealed that 93 percent of account holders use the platform to plan what they want to buy while 50 percent have actually bought something after seeing a Promoted Pin. And with 20 million monthly users, it makes sense for marketers to take advantage of Pinterest’s power.

These seven marketing tools are among the best for helping generate more website traffic with Pinterest in 2018:

1. Canva

You need captivating images if you want people to notice your Pins, and Canva is just the design software to help you achieve this. Canva offers ready to use Pinterest Pin templates with a variety of layouts to choose from. The layouts are customizable, so you can easily change the font, text, and background image. You can also add more graphics or take out elements that don’t fit with your vision or website theme. You can use the app for free and just purchase new images or assets for $1. However, a paid version will give you more designs and photos to choose from, as well as the option of saving your logo or brand to make designing a board go quicker.

2. Hootsuite

Hootsuite makes it possible for you to create boards, make a publishing schedule, and post pins directly to Pinterest from its dashboard. You can also manage several accounts using this tool, making it easier and safer for your team since you’re just using one secure workflow. This full integration on a single dashboard saves time and makes it easier to reach a wider audience.

3. PicMonkey

Eye-catching images are what sets Pinterest apart from other social platforms. Retailers and service-based companies will have more impact on this platform if they use a visual format for their content. PicMonkey is an online image editor that can help with designing and editing your brand’s images so that simple shots become more compelling. You can give photos a quick touch-up, resize images, create image quotes, and overlay photos with text. More importantly, it’s free so you won’t even need to hire a digital artist or invest in Photoshop.

4. PinFollow

You need a lot of followers to establish your brand’s credibility, influence, and popularity. One way to get more followers on Pinterest is to follow other Pinners and hope they will do the same. PinFollow will help you weed out which Pinners are not following you so you can unfollow these accounts. This will streamline your list and leave you with more loyal followers.

5. PinGroupie

One of the fastest ways to make connections on this social media platform is through groups, but finding the right group board to join is tricky. PinGroupie helps you establish the best Pinterest Group Boards for your brand. This tool lists live group boards, allowing you to reach out to the owners and see if they are willing to let you join or contribute to the board. PinGroupie also has an industry sorting feature that you can use to check what kind of content other brands are offering and see if there’s anything unique that you can provide.

6. Pinterest Analytics

This tool provides Pinterest users with the basic metrics about their Pins, like reach, impressions, and what people save from their website. It also shows how much traffic your site receives and indicates what your customers want. It’s very simple to use; just click on the stats icon on your Pins to get an overview of the essential metrics. You can use the tool to improve your marketing strategy and come up with ways to get more clicks, saves, and impressions.

7. Tailwind

Tailwind is one of the most essential tools you need to successfully market on Pinterest. This analytics and campaign management tool will help you do everything, from scheduling the content you need published, to pinpointing your most influential followers to determining the most popular pins. It can also monitor your competitors and track the engagements on your account. What’s more, it seamlessly integrates with Google Analytics.

[Featured image via Pixabay]

A 2015 CMO survey underlined this difficulty, with only 15 percent of participating marketers being able to quantitatively measure the effectiveness of their social media marketing plans. Meanwhile, a recent MDG Advertising infographic shows that not much has changed with regards to measuring the effectivity of social media marketing and its impact on a company’s ROI.

According to the accompanying MDG report, only 20 percent of companies said they were able to determine the success of their social media campaigns while 44 percent could not determine social media’s impact on their business. This problem also affects marketing agencies, with 28 percent facing challenges in measuring the effectivity of social media. However, 55 percent of said agencies claim they could somewhat determine the ROI generated by social media while a mere 17 percent could accurately measure it.

[Graphic via mdgadvertising.com]

Challenges of Measuring Social Media Campaigns

Because social media is a relatively new (and constantly evolving) marketing channel, measuring its true impact of ROI remains a conundrum for many businesses. What’s more, a lot of companies remain unsure of social media’s place in the big picture.

There are other reasons why measuring social media impact remains complicated.

• Businesses Have Different KPIs: Brands have their own goals, values, and propositions and the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) they want to measure depend on these. However, KPIs can change depending on the direction the company wants to take. This makes it hard to set specific metrics and data points.

• Data is Limited: Each social media platform has its own set of analytics. Some tools engage followers while others show demographic information. It would also require companies to do a lot of mining just to put everything together.

• Qualitative Results are Hard to See: It’s easy to see quantitative results such as the numbers of comments, likes, and shares. But the more important question is the kind of action consumers are actually taking — the qualitative results. For instance, are they buying products or just sharing content?

• Business Impact is Hard to Determine: ROIs are about returns and investments. Even if companies are able to tie their social media campaigns to their KPIs and business goals, most remain confused as to what it means for their bottom line. Companies would have to consider the number of people working on social media accounts and their salaries, social media software, and advertising costs and compare them against KPIs.

Best Ways to Check Effectiveness of Social Media Drive

Despite the ambiguity, social media does have a positive influence on a company’s sales and revenue. The question now is how to measure and quantify this impact. Knowing the following metrics of your campaigns can help you measure their effectiveness:

• Click-Through Rate: While click-throughs are a key metric, companies should do more than just track clicks. They should also focus on metrics geared towards specifically designed landing pages and content. Companies should also look at click-throughs in relation to bounce rates. High bounce rates imply that the site’s content is not delivering on the call-to-action or headline’s promise.

• Conversions: Whether it’s a sign-up, filling out a form, or an online sale, companies should have a goal when it comes to conversions, especially when creating paid ads. This is significant as it provides direct ROI numbers. Conversions are also relatively easy to track. Some companies utilize lead generation forms while others opt for pixel codes.

• Engagement: This metric is more than just the volume of likes a page or post has since it doesn’t give a clear indication of commitment. A meaningful engagement that results in brand awareness, product interest or sales are the best testaments to the impact of social media activity. Companies should put real effort into having a dialogue with their audience and influencers.

• Traffic: Identifying the actual value of traffic is about checking the share of driven traffic and the actions generated by click-throughs. Tools like Google Analytics makes tracking the impact of social media on site traffic simpler. Companies should look more closely at how much of the site traffic was driven by social media since this will provide you with concrete numbers that you can work with.

Remember, you can’t market what you can’t measure (at least not effectively). So, before you run a social media campaign, be sure to set up adequate analytic tools that measure the data that correlates with the outcome you desire. For many businesses, picking the right tools and correctly assessing the data they collect comes with a learning curve. However, once you get past that hurdle, you can use the data to grow your business by leaps and bounds.

[Featured image via Pixabay]

According to Acquisio, paid search accounts that have been optimised for machine learning have 71% higher conversion rates and have lower cost-per-click (CPC). But these were not the only benefits that accounts using machine learning enjoyed. The web marketing company also revealed these accounts were also able to reach their target spending levels and had lower churn rates.

The data implies that small marketing teams and CMOs now stand on an even playing field with more established companies now that ML is more affordable, effective and accessible to everyone.

This doesn’t mean that marketers should ignore organic search and original, value-laden content. Paid search might be the easiest way to rank high in search engines, particularly since AI will be doing the bulk of the work, developing campaigns that have greater odds of being seen by the right searchers at the proper time. However, organic search is more authentic and will last longer than paid searches.

The goal now is to understand how ML impacts the search system and how to take advantage of the technology’s evolution that made paid and organic searches more effective.

Paid vs Organic Search: Which Wins in the End?

There’s been an ongoing debate as to which is better – paid or organic searches. Interestingly, both have come out on top, but at different times and conditions. The results have depended on the type of research done and other outside factors. For instance, a study conducted in 2011 showed that organic search was more effective. However, paid search has outpaced its counterpart from 2013 onwards. But this appears to be due to the changes Google has made to its algorithm.

So which is better? Andy Taylor, the Associate Director of Research at Merkle, believes that flexibility is the best option. Instead of just sticking to one approach, companies should determine what search strategy is ideal for their business at the moment and the technology that’s currently available. After all, the ideal marketing strategy for your company now will probably change in a few months as customers change their expectations and technologies expand.

Machine Learning is Changing More Than Search

The rise of machine learning has also resulted in a shift to data-driven models instead of the conventional attribution models. This multi-touch attribution model (MTA) relies on an analytics scale that’s more descriptive and takes into account various touchpoint outputs, like ad interactions, ad creative, or exposure order. It also allows marketers to have a better understanding of how factors, like a distinct set of keywords and ad words, can affect a conversion.

But it’s not just search capacities that machine learning has an impact on. The technology is also being used to refine and make algorithm changes. It has been theorized that Google’s RankBrain utilizes machine learning to assess if the company has to revise its own rankings based on what the consumer searches for and whether the user was satisfied with the result.

Machine Learning Will Push for More Sophisticated Content

Because machine learning technology is developing more advanced SEM capacities and sophisticated algorithms, search engines are pushing marketers and content producers to deliver more refined content. This would eventually lead to search engines becoming more discerning to the quality of online content a company is putting out. This means producing high-quality content that particularly targets what the consumer is looking for becomes more vital than ever before.

Machine learning and AI are impacting every aspect of marketing. Companies should start understanding them and how to utilize ML-optimized tools effectively in their marketing campaigns.  

“At Adobe, we make digital memorable, and today at Adobe Summit, we planted the flag for the next generation of innovation in experiences with our announcement of the Adobe Experience Cloud. Together with Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Document Cloud, Adobe provides enterprises everything they need to deliver exceptional customer experiences.”

“Adobe Experience Cloud” will bring together the company’s current marketing, advertising, analytics services into a package that the company says is broadly applicable across many segments of technology buyers.

“Four or five years ago, the chief marketing officer was underserved,” Brad Rencher, Executive VP and GM of Digital Marketing Adobe, recently told Fortune. “What’s happened since then is the principles of digital marketing, the need for real-time action, for data, for great content, for personalization for mobile apps in the store and in the car has gone way beyond the marketing department.”

Back then, the need to create content and get it to the right people in a timely fashion via the right channel was something that maybe 30% of a company’s execs had to worry about. Now that percentage is more like 90%, said Rencher. That means the sort of software Adobe offers, like its Analytics Cloud for gauging interest in web content, could be used across many departments. Analytics Cloud is based on Adobe’s $1.8 billion acquisition of Omniture in 2009.

By integrating all of Adobe’s Marketing tools and solutions in the Marketing, Analytics, and Advertising Clouds, with Creative and Document Clouds, Adobe’s Experience Cloud aims to help enterprises be much better “experience businesses“.

“As a Pinner once said to me, “Pinterest is for yourself, not your selfies”—I love that,” said Ben Silbermann, CEO & Co-Founder of Pinterest. “Pinterest is more of a personal tool than a social one. People don’t come to see what their friends are doing. (There are lots of other great places out there for that!) Instead, they come to Pinterest to find ideas to try, figure out which ones they love, and learn a little bit about themselves in the process.”

He added, “Personally I can’t wait to see what new ideas all these people bring to Pinterest, and find out what happens when they give those ideas a try. Thank you all so much for being here…each and every one hundred and fifty million of you!”

Pinterest is a Huge Business Marketing Opportunity

The company also noted that Pinterest now provides 10 billion recommendations daily, more than 150 million visual searches happen monthly, and there are more than 1 million businesses on the service with “tens of thousands” actively advertising.

They say that they now have over 75 billion pins and an amazing 75% of them were posted by businesses.

“Growing the number of people on Pinterest by 50% over the last year is pretty impressive especially when you consider that Pinterest is more a personal tool than a social one,” said Jon Kaplan, Head of Global Sales for Pinterest. “People don’t invite all their friends to join, and they don’t log in to see what their friends are doing (there are lots of other great places out there for that!). Instead, they come to Pinterest to discover and do the things they love, and learn a little bit more about themselves in the process.”

Pinterest is now able to offer marketers precise information what products people are searching for the most and who those people are and they are willing to let marketers link into that data.

“With so many people around the world saving and searching for ideas on Pinterest, we now know more about what’s trending—and with which audiences—than anyone else,” says Kaplan. “As a business, this means you have millions of new opportunities to connect your ideas and products to the people who are most interested in giving them a try.”

Marketing with Pinterest

Pinterest is a unique marketing opportunity for both large and small businesses. Pinterest can be used as a traffic driver like many other search and social platforms, but Pinterest can also uniquely be used to inspire and engage audiences with your brand.

Babylist, a unique baby registry service that allows you to put anything on your registry from ANY store, used Pinterest to rapidly grow brand awareness and engagement with their exact targeted audience. To reach the 43 million people on Pinterest preparing for a baby, BabyList optimized their website for Pinterest and included Pin-worthy content in every blog post from the start, according to the Pinterest ad team.

“We were surprised at just how many new registries Pinterest drove for us,” said Brittany Murlas, former CMO of Babylist. “I would describe our overall success on Pinterest in two words: Explosive growth.”

According to Pinterest, within the first 5 months of using Promoted Pins, they saw a 70% increase in account signups and a 40% increase in revenue and heir content has been saved by more than 50,000 people to baby-specific boards.

What’s Next for Pinterest?

According to Kaplan, Pinterest is evolving into a “truly worldwide (platform), with more men, more ideas and more sophisticated technologies to help get the right ideas to the right people.

“Big Data holds the potential to describe target customers with an accuracy and level of detail unfathomable only a decade ago,” said Jean Spencer on the SalesForce blog, who is a Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft and was previously the content marketing manager at Kapost. “While old-school marketing efforts were limited to things like tracking returns on direct mail campaigns, or number of subscribers to newsletters, modern marketers can have data on people’s exercise habits, digital clicking behavior, time spent on various sites, purchasing history, personal preferences based on social media postings, time awake, time spent in the car, caloric intake, and almost anything else you can imagine.”

SalesForce is at the epicenter of data, marketing and sales. They offer this overview of the concept:

Using Data To Make Better Marketing Decisions

A report by the Aberdeen Group says that 44 percent of executives are dissatisfied with the analytic capabilities available to them and that they often make critical decisions based on inaccurate or inadequate data. That was in 2014 and fortunately CRM has improved dramatically since then and executives are now typically integrating CRM solutions into their marketing platforms.

“No longer do we rely on conclusions based on vague and imprecise relationships such as “we advertised last week and sales increased so it must have worked” or the common one that I’ve heard many times, “the objective was awareness and clearly many people are now aware of us”, said Gerald Chait who is Director/CEO of Marketing By Objectives. “In today’s world, this just does not cut it anymore.”

Chait added in a blog post, “Gone are the days when we would define roughly segmented target audiences and place an ad hoping someone would purchase something. Today’s marketing enables us to identify who to work with to make a sale, right down to the individual level. What’s more, we can personalize and customize our advertising and messaging to each specific person, no matter how many people there are. We can even customise and personalize website pages depending on who’s viewing them.”

It’s often referred to as predictive marketing, gathering data to learn what is working and what isn’t using precise analytical strategies and technologies in order to finely tune your marketing.

“Predictive marketing is the application of predictive technology to the entire marketing process, across the entire buyer’s journey, and across every channel of communication,” says Eli Snyder, Associate Technology Director of Strategy at Intelligent Demand. “It means not only having predictive insight into the future through predictive analytics, but also using that insight to make better decisions about who and how to engage, and then build better content, campaigns and programs.”

“In order to execute your marketing strategy in the most effective way, you’ll need your business management platform (or CRM) and marketing automation tools to work together seamlessly; using one to generate leads, and the other to maintain them, so you can get a complete picture of your business,” said Mark Sokol who is the VP of Product Marketing and Branding at ConnectWise.

The Intersection of Marketing & CRM is Leads

CRM and marketing are now tightly integrated in order to make marketing more efficient and and successful. “In the past, the marketing campaign stops here in the CRM software system and the rest is carried out externally,” said Denise Holland, VP & Senior Analyst of Genesys Advisory in the CRMsearch blog. “In today’s world, the right customer relationship management system can create the message, compile your target list, distribute your messaging pursuant to an automated schedule, capture the replies and inquiries from these marketing placements, route them to the right sales person or department, track the sale opportunity progress, record the successful sale event and calculate the campaign ROI.”

“This CRM system can also advise the best time to call or email your customers, what type of messaging will illicit the best response, if your customer is really serious or just shopping around, how you can improve your products and services, and what new products and services your R&D department should focus on next,” he says.

“CRM has one common component to help you make marketing decisions, Leads, says Joe CRM on the PowerObjects blog. “Lead data allows you to gauge how healthy your marketing is, what works and what doesn’t, and lets you understand lead quality. In today’s post, we’ll provide some lead data sources from CRM you can use to help make marketing decisions.”

Joe at PowerObjects says you need to know where your leads are coming from. “Some examples of lead sources include outbound cold calls, email, chat, website form submission, and events,” he said. “Keeping the lead source simple lets you use a different field, source campaign, to describe the lead source in more detail as needed.”

He says that knowing where leads come from drives marketing decisions such as:

• Number of employees needed for the inside sales team
• Budget disbursement for paid advertising
• Landing page success
• P&L for events attended

Create a Data-Driven Culture

“To cultivate a data-driven culture within your organization, it’s important to remember that without data, you’re simply another person with an opinion,” commented MeetMe CTO Jonah Harris on the NGDATA blog. “All too often, with valuable data and insights in hand, people remain invested in their own hunches and intuition.”

“Transitioning to a genuine data-driven culture is a challenge for many organizations, but one of the ideal first steps is to start leveraging the data your business has to guide evidence-based decision making,” added Vaclav Shatillo of Business Intelligence at Clutch. “When data reinforces or, better yet, contradicts the gut feeling, the conversation around the importance of a data-driven approach is bound to begin.”

David Waterman, Senior Director of Earned Media/SEO at The Search Agency says getting in front of the data is key:

1. How to get/collect the data,
2. Specifically what data to use,
3. How the data will inform business decisions,
4. At what frequency the data is needed to make actionable decision, and
5. How to package the data so it can be easily digested, analyzed and reacted to.

Find other great advice from a variety of experts quoted about how to create a data-driven culture here.

Darren Catalano, the CEO of HelioCampus offers some great tips on building a data-driven culture that can be applied to any business:

Data is Marketing Gold

“Data isn’t an overwhelming set of facts and figures,” said Megan Totka is the Marketing Director for ChamberofCommerce.com. “It’s marketing gold. It shows you what your customers want and how to get your customers to buy from you.”

Joe CRM says that the “data you receive from leads that turn into opportunities and then end up as customers is a goldmine.” He says, “This data alone can give your company direction and help you find your niche. That’s why when you use your closed as won accounts it should be for a macro view of your marketing processes. This is the data executives want to see from marketing because it helps prove ROI or that the money spent was worthwhile.”

Data that can power your successful marketing strategy is sometimes found in places that you don’t expect. “New marketing technology, measurement platforms and other advances have greatly expanded the sources that marketers can sift through for nuggets of information,” said Eva Rohrmann, the director of solutions and customer lifecycle marketing for PR Newswire. ”

Rohrmann says that the “most useful data that will turn strategic, positioning and tactical efforts into gold oftentimes is hiding right under your nose: with other teams within your organization.” She believes that ideas and data are “streaming” from many directions, “from sales to product to customer support.”

“Every team within your organization has a treasure trove of actionable marketing intelligence waiting to be discovered,” she says.

The marketing landscape is changing and that should make every CMO’s job easier because they are using justifiable logic instead of just gut intuition. In order for a company to reach their maximum sales potential they must utilize data-driven CRM strategies.

“Marketing is currently undergoing a metamorphosis from a once qualitatively measured art towards a quantitatively driven science,” said Eamonn O’Raghallaigh, the Managing Director of Digital Strategy. on the company’s blog. “This paradigm shift will indeed lead to significant impacts on the competitive landscape; with the bias towards companies who adopt and embrace a data-centric culture within their organization.”