Content Discovery & Content Curation | MarTech Series https://martechseries.com/category/content/content-discovery/ Marketing Technology Insights Wed, 18 Dec 2024 11:40:53 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.5 https://martechseries.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/cropped-martech_series_logo-1-4-32x32.png Content Discovery & Content Curation | MarTech Series https://martechseries.com/category/content/content-discovery/ 32 32 MarTech Interview with Jon Moran, Head of MarTech Solutions Marketing @ SAS https://martechseries.com/mts-insights/interviews/martech-interview-with-jon-moran-head-of-martech-solutions-marketing-sas/ Wed, 18 Dec 2024 11:40:53 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=370968
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Jon Moran, Head of MarTech Solutions Marketing at SAS chats about the importance of focusing on responsible use of AI in modern marketing in this martech catch-up:

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Hi Jon, tell us about your role at SAS and more about your tech journey so far?

At SAS, I am responsible for all marketing activities related to our MarTech and AdTech lines of business. This includes positioning, messaging, working with customers and more. Over more than 20 years, I’ve worked for a variety of analytics and data management companies, and have been involved in pre-sales consulting, tech development and enablement, and strategic product marketing. My tech journey has been one of learning, opportunity and growth.

Take us through SAS’s recent acquisition of Hazy and how it enables better data management and improved marketing data for marketing teams?

The acquisition of Hazy technology will enhance SAS’ generative AI and synthetic data generation capabilities. With these additive capabilities, customers can more easily innovate by overcoming common challenges related to data availability and quality. The acquisition helps data scientists and business and marketing analysts generate better, more complete data for marketing analytics activities. By performing more comprehensive analytical modeling, marketing teams can create more holistic customer audiences and provide better insights to frontline marketers.

What tips would you share with marketers when it comes to the way data should be stored and managed for improved marketing plans?

My main tip for today’s marketers is to be responsible with very careful with any customer data assets and treat them with care. Always account for data governance, privacy and security. Missteps and data breaches can result in severe negative impacts on customer loyalty and financial performance. One of the things we’ve done to ensure the protection of marketing and customer data is to employ what we call a “hybrid data architecture,” which means our software does not move or duplicate customer and marketing data. And when we do have to move it, it remains encrypted – both in transit and at rest. Because the software can access and use data for marketing purposes where it resides, organizations are confident they are not taking unnecessary security risks.

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What tips should marketing teams keep in mind when using AI to improve their data workflows?

When using AI from a data workflow or ETL perspective, it’s extremely important to keep a “human in the loop”. This means having a human involved in setting up data procedures, testing them and ensuring that the outputs are aligned with expectations. It is still too risky to let AI fully control the movement of sensitive data without human-based approval. AI can do a great job on things like summarization, analyzing trends, and even augmenting incomplete data. But we must ensure that, from a customer and marketing perspective, the right data is used and the wrong data does not get activated. Responsible use of data and AI enhances marketing efforts and campaigns while avoiding potentially serious harm.

A few myths surrounding customer data and AI?

Here are three:

  1. The first myth is related to the widespread belief that a lot of marketers have immersed themselves in the use of generative AI (GenAI). Recent research that SAS conducted on marketing departments use of GenAI found that while 75% of marketers are using the technology daily, only 10% are currently using GenAI in a production capacity. This means marketers are still experimenting with GenAI and looking for ways it can add value.
  2. The second myth is that, as a marketer, you must use generative AI. My take: Traditional AI such as machine learning and predictive analytics can perform a lot of the work done by generative AI (such as probabilistic summarization) and sometimes do it better. As I noted in my 2025 MarTech predictions, a lot of brands are getting consumed by the generative AI hype but are starting to realize that more traditional AI is the answer, particularly for front-end CX applications.
  3. Third and biggest myth is that AI is a threat. There is no imminent risk of AI taking over all jobs or society. Rather, AI will spark new jobs and new careers, while GenAI and other tools will be integrated into marketing and advertising roles. Ultimately, I remain convinced that AI will not replace people, but instead, it will help people do more.

Top martech tools that have held your interest and attention in the recent months and why?

There are a lot of fascinating solutions out there – from AI- and GenAI-powered content-creation tools to advanced data and journey orchestration platforms.

My favorite – no surprise – is our marketing solution, SAS® Customer Intelligence 360, which employs AI and GenAI to enhance marketing. Notable in it and other top MarTech solutions is the ability to:

  • Use GenAI prompts to create customer audiences for marketing and advertising efforts.
  • Apply GenAI to construct outbound customer journeys and inbound decision flows, all end-to-end.
  • Embed deep analytics with business users in mind so that marketers can gather deep insights on CX performance and success without having to do any coding.

Marketing Technology News: How will 5G Technology Impact Marketing and Advertising?

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SAS is a global leader in data and AI. With SAS software and industry-specific solutions, organizations transform data into trusted decisions. SAS gives you THE POWER TO KNOW®.

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Jonathan Moran is responsible for global marketing activities for SAS’ marketing solutions. He has more than 20 years of industry experience, with a focus on marketing technologies and the customer experience (CX).

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Performance Marketing – Top Trends to Expect https://martechseries.com/mts-insights/staff-writers/performance-marketing-top-trends-to-expect/ Wed, 03 Jul 2024 08:08:24 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=362210 Digital marketing is in fact an umbrella term and there are multiple types of digital marketing? One of the lesser-known but extremely crucial forms of every digital marketing strategy is performance marketing. Herein, you need to pay advertisers only when a specific action has been taken by a target customer.

Performance marketing is defined as a form of digital marketing that is entirely driven by results. It is the best solution for companies that aim to reach out to their audience at scale. In such a situation performance marketing is considered ideal as the expenses are based entirely on how users interact online with the brand. Herein you will publish your ad on any of the available performance marketing channels. But you will have to pay based on how well your ad is performing in terms of shares, clicks, sales, or impressions.

Evolution of Performance Marketing

The origins of performance marketing can be traced to the late 90s with the advent of Search Engine Advertising (SEA) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Over the years, several new strategies have been introduced that go beyond these two basic concepts and now cover all channels of the digital space. Some of the prominent channels that are now used as a part of the performance strategy are SEO, Affiliate Marketing, SEM, Social Pay per Click, and Programmatic Buying.

In the past few years, Performance marketing has expanded not only to the distribution channels but also to the technological aspects of the thing. Several new opportunities and tools have appeared to help marketers. These include remarketing, behavioral targeting, behavioral preferences, profitability, and several others. Though the importance of incoming traffic analytics has not been eroded at all. In fact, opportunities for performance marketing have exceeded the functionality of Google Analytics.

With the advent of seamless integrations in existing systems, you can now access details related to all performance marketing metrics effortlessly. The priority would be to focus on the needs, interests, and behavior of the target audience. The main focus of performance marketing will always be on identifying a specific target audience with the use of all the available tools.

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Top Performance Marketing Trends

The performance marketing space has been evolving at a rapid pace. It becomes vital for you as a marketer to spot the latest trends and leverage them to understand what future trends could be. Here are some of the interest performance marketing trends that you can expect:

1. Rise of Podcasts:

Podcasts have been emerging as a popular platform for marketers across the world. More than 100 million Americans are regularly tuning in to listen to different podcasts. Many of these listeners are spending over 10 hours every week listening to podcasts and are now known as ‘Super Listeners’. These individuals not only pay attention to ads but are also more receptive to ads than standard listeners. If you want to target a new set of audiences for your brand, starting a podcast or being featured in one can be a good way to go. With the exceptional results that podcast advertising is bringing, it surely is one of the best marketing modes of 2024.

2. Direct to Consumer:

Ever since the pandemic hit, most brands made a digital pivot and refocused on D2C sales. The goal here is to eliminate the middleman from the transaction. An increasing number of brands are realizing that shipping products directly to consumers are a much better option that through a middleman. If you are also not satisfied with your distributors, then going the D2C way could be the way ahead for you in 2024. This will allow you more control over your brand and be in direct touch with your customers.

3. Influencer Marketing:

From $1.7 billion in 2016, total spending on influencer marketing in the US has crossed $13 billion by 2021. In fact, more than 68% of US companies with over 100 employees will use influencer marketing as a part of their strategy. In fact, influencer marketing has now entered the realm of B2B marketing as well wherein you can see certain guest speakers promoting the products and services of a brand at events. While influencer marketing is not an instant way to success, it is still a more effective and economic performance marketing strategy.

An increasing number of businesses are now focusing on their performance marketing strategy under the ambit of their digital marketing campaigns. With such interesting trends predicted for 2024, it will be an interesting experience to see how this domain evolves further.

Marketing Technology News: The Impact of AI Avatars on the Future of Media

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TMW and Alium join forces to offer next-generation market intelligence https://martechseries.com/analytics/marketing-attribution/tmw-and-alium-join-forces-to-offer-next-generation-market-intelligence/ Wed, 26 Jun 2024 04:46:48 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=361945 The Martech Weekly (TMW) and Alium have formed a strategic partnership to disrupt traditional market intelligence research methods and transform the Martech decision-making landscape

The Martech Weekly (TMW), a Melbourne-based global leader in Martech news, has today officially announced its partnership with Alium, a New York-headquartered buyer intelligence platform that shares what end-users are really saying about enterprise tech.

Globally, marketers have spent up big on shiny new Martech, navigating the minefield of 14,000-plus solutions. Indeed, many marketers have rushed into ill-advised and expensive purchases, fearing their business was at imminent risk of being outcompeted by earlier-adopting competitors.

How we got here

Marketers are experts in marketing, not technology. Even if they have above-average tech literacy, C-suite decision-makers are usually not entirely confident about being able to identify the appropriate solutions for their organisation’s needs.

Sensibly, CMOs and executives typically seek expert advice before making a significant Martech investment.

But that ‘expert advice’ is frequently of questionable provenance and reliability.

The data around the worryingly low utilisation of Martech suggests that something is going wrong somewhere along the line.

Marketing Technology news: How the MarTech Landscape Now Spans Over 11k Tools

This is where prominent tech-industry players Alium and TMW have spotted a gap in the market. Their new joint venture will provide reassuringly transparent market intelligence. Market intelligence that prioritises providing honest customer reviews to those charged with making high-stakes purchasing decisions.

Introducing the new generation of market intelligence disruptors

Juan Mendoza is an Australian entrepreneur based in Melbourne. He worked for The Lumery, Conversionry and Fusion MusicTech before starting a marketing and technology newsletter at the height of the Covid lockdowns. Four years on, The Martech Weekly (TMW) is a fast-growing company whose content is avidly consumed by senior figures at some of the world’s largest media, technology, consulting, advertising and research companies. (Think Google, Facebook, The New York Times and many major global consulting brands.) TMW has an increasingly global presence, with customers and subscribers in over 65 countries.

Jonathan Sherry is a seasoned entrepreneur based in New York. In 2008, he co-founded CB Insights. Over the course of his 11+ years as its COO, he built and led the company to become the venture capital industry’s preeminent source of research and intelligence. In 2022, Sherry launched Alium, a buyer intelligence platform providing unfiltered access to what buyers are saying about enterprise tech. Alium is backed by Greycroft and Primary Venture Partners.

The introductory email that sparked a promising enterprise

Both Mendoza and Sherry believe the market-intelligence behemoths are torn between conflicting financial incentives.

Mendoza explains the venture was born out of a long-simmering frustration with the status quo. “What have CMOs who want a worthwhile insight into the capacities and performance of a marketing technology typically done?” he asks.

“Maybe they pay a consultant $50,000 to take responsibility for the decision. Perhaps they just buy from a brand in the upper right quadrant, believing they’ll never get fired for doing that. Whatever is happening, it’s not working. Until relatively recently, businesses were spending ever more on Martech but then failing to make much use of it. Inevitably, companies have now reacted by reducing their spend on Martech. That’s understandable, but short-sighted.”

After Mendoza published an essay highlighting, yet again, the unsatisfactoriness of the current arrangements, Sherry emailed him out of the blue. First, an online friendship and then a business plan was born.

“Like Juan, I’ve long had issues with the established players,” Sherry adds. “They clip the ticket at various points, taking money from both tech buyers and sellers. This leads to conflicting incentives, which degrades the quality of the analysis they provide.”

What the future looks like

Mendoza and Sherry have concluded the $50 billion technology research industry is ripe for disruption. Both have runs on the board, so it would be risky for complacent incumbents to assume they have little to fear.

With negotiations now finalised, Mendoza and Sherry are excited to announce their new joint venture. Here’s some further information on how the TMW-Alium tie-up will function.

Alium, a new entrant into the buyer intelligence space, interviews experts with first-hand experience purchasing, implementing, and using marketing technology. Alium compiles this data to provide unparalleled insights into the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities of various marketing technologies from the people whose opinions matter the most: practitioners.

TMW keeps busy marketing technology leaders ahead of the industry with their Wednesday Martech briefing and in-depth Sunday essays. Additionally, TMW identifies the most promising and innovative marketing technologies each year with the TMW 100, ranking the 100 most innovative marketing technologies globally from 1st to 100th place, decided by the marketing technology community and a panel of nine global experts.

From July 1, Alium and TMW will join forces to bring greater clarity to how marketing technology is being used, bought and sold. This will give marketing-industry executives an unprecedented, long-overdue understanding of which Martech tools are worth the outlay.

“We’ve settled on the slogan, ‘Transforming the Martech decision-making landscape’, ” Mendoza says.

“And that’s exactly what we’re about to do,” adds Sherry.

The Martech Weekly (TMW) is a media company that creates content consumed by leading marketing and technology executives in more than 65 countries. TMW also hosts the TMW 100, an industry-first awards program recognising the most innovative marketing tech companies from 1st to 100th place globally.

Alium optimises enterprise technology purchasing for buyers and sellers through actionable zero-party intelligence that is shared by both parties. Buyers leverage Alium to discover, select and evaluate vendors that meet their needs. Vendors use Alium to drive transparent, measurable ROI for their go-to-market teams. We help sales teams source and close more deals. We help customer success teams avoid churn and drive upsell. We help marketers optimise ad spend and unlock competitive intel. Alium is backed by Primary and Greycroft, and is built by the team that founded CB Insights.

Marketing Technology News: Bloomreach Unveils Premium Loomi AI Features for Ecommerce

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MarTech Interview with Chris Koehler, CMO @ Twilio https://martechseries.com/mts-insights/interviews/martech-interview-with-chris-koehler-cmo-twilio/ Wed, 19 Jun 2024 08:49:07 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=361419 Chris Koehler, CMO at Twilio talks about the changing B2B marketing landscape and how new age martech and AI is leading to a complete shift:

Welcome to this MarTech Series chat, Chris, tell us about your marketing journey and what you’re looking forward to as Twilio’s new CMO? 

I took a nontraditional path that led me to marketing. I’ve held leadership roles in customer success, product management, and marketing analytics. Working in different roles enables me to view the business through a general manager lens rather than a solely marketing perspective – in other words, I am always thinking about how we can grow the business overall.

I’m excited to join Twilio for a couple of big reasons. First, I’m a longtime Segment customer and I’ve always admired Twilio as an innovator in the industry. Second, as customer-focused leader, the opportunity to join a company like Twilio and build the next generation Customer Engagement Platform is incredibly exciting. I’ve spent almost 20 years in various roles in customer engagement and marketing technology, so I understand and love the category. Twilio happens to have world class CDP and the CPaaS platforms and is positioned well to really capture the opportunity AI presents right now.

What about today’s state of B2B marketing is broken in your view? 

In many companies, including B2B, there are silos across tech stacks. There are different programs for CX, marketing, sales and these programs aren’t connected and it’s difficult for these teams to communicate. When building an experience for our customers, we need to think holistically – if you have great marketing but your CX is disjointed, that ruins the experience for customers. The experience needs to be seamless from end to end. As an added benefit, when these silos are broken down, brands also get a full view of the customer and can leverage that data to continually improve the customer experience.

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Tell us more about your marketing strategies that you’ve relied on over the years to boost impact and the martech that has helped power it all?

Over the years, my marketing strategies have been anchored on three core principles:

  1. Customer-Centric Focus: We prioritize relevance and empathy in our messaging and experiences to ensure that every interaction resonates with our audience. By putting ourselves in our customers’ shoes, we create more meaningful connections and foster loyalty.
  2. Data-Driven Decision Making: A data-driven approach enables us to create targeted campaigns, personalize experiences, and optimize performance continuously. Additionally, we cultivate a “test and learn” culture, where we experiment with different strategies and iterate based on insights gained from data analysis.
  3. Agility and Nimbleness: We understand the importance of adapting quickly to changing market conditions, consumer trends, and technological advancements. Whether it’s responding to shifts in consumer behavior or capitalizing on emerging opportunities, we remain nimble to ensure our marketing efforts remain effective and impactful.

How do you use AI in your current marketing plans and martech stack? 

At Twilio, we leverage the data from Segment’s CDP to power our AI solutions. Predictive AI enables our team to predict behaviors based on past actions. Generative AI creates unique and personalized campaigns at scale, builds out audiences, and creates more precise segmentation for campaigns. These solutions can be built and implemented quickly across our teams – to improve our ROI across campaigns.

Can you share your thoughts on the future of AI, marketing and martech: what will the market look like down the line?

There’s a massive opportunity for AI to combine data from across customer touchpoints to drive truly personalized, 1:1 marketing. This is something the industry has been talking about for years, but few have actually delivered on. With AI, every company can have the tools needed to provide personalization across the customer journey for each individual customer,  something we’ve come to expect from big companies that have the resources.

Five daily essentials you feel every B2B CMO should action or follow before we wrap up…

 

  • Always be learning. Get comfortable being uncomfortable, be open to embracing new perspectives, learning, and growing. Leaders too often push to validate their own point of view, rather than seeking to find the truth, which can be counterintuitive. Be curious and try to learn something new everyday.
  • Being humble. I’ve been continually delighted that great ideas often come from those you might least expect! We don’t have all the answers so ask lots of questions and assume a beginner’s mindset.
  • Get technical, if not already. The science of marketing is changing constantly and marketers need to understand how all the technology works together in order to better lead. This is only going to accelerate with AI. Get smarter every day. Ask your marketing partners to help educate you during executive business reviews.
  • Focus on the customer. You really need to deeply understand your customers to successfully serve them. Spend time with them and ask them what they want and need from your brand. Ask them about the problems they are trying to solve and why. At the end of the day, we are in business to help our customers succeed.
  • Think like a General Manager or CEO. Too often, Marketers get enamored by our technology and buzzwords. Focus on the customers and growing the business. Translate marketing activities and results into language your peers outside marketing will understand. This will drive credibility and respect from the C-Suite.

Marketing Technology News: How Conversational AI Streamlines Demand Generation and MarTech Workflows

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twilioTwilio’s mission is to unlock the imagination of builders.

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Chris Koehler is CMO at Twilio

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PM Dragonfly Hires Ed Flower as CEO to Drive Next Phase of Growth https://martechseries.com/content/content-marketing/pm-dragonfly-hires-ed-flower-as-ceo-to-drive-next-phase-of-growth/ Wed, 22 May 2024 20:30:06 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=360254

PM Dragonfly, a specialist data and technology consulting agency and Google expert, proudly announces the appointment of Ed Flower as its new Chief Executive Officer. With a wealth of experience in marketing technology and the advertising industry, Ed is poised to lead PM Dragonfly into a new era of growth and innovation, further expanding its partnership with Google.

Ed’s extensive career includes leadership roles such as Global Chief Commercial Officer at Acceleration, a WPP Company, where he played a pivotal role in scaling the company and fostering alliances with key technology partner Google. With over two decades of industry experience, Ed is well-equipped to leverage his strategic vision and commercial acumen to drive PM Dragonfly forward.

This appointment comes at a pivotal moment, coinciding with Tquila’s increased investment in PM Dragonfly. As part of Tquila’s strategy to enhance its technology portfolio, Ed’s appointment underscores Tquila’s commitment to strengthening PM Dragonfly’s market position and vision for growth.

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Ed Flower commented: “Joining PM Dragonfly as CEO is an incredible opportunity to lead a dynamic team and drive innovation in today’s marketing technology consulting landscape. I am excited to help our clients build leading edge data and AI technology capabilities, and help them maximise the value of their marketing investments. With Tquila’s support and a strong partnership with Google, we are well-positioned for success.”

Mark Hutchinson, Chair, Tquila, added: “I am excited to welcome Ed to the PM Dragonfly leadership team. PM Dragonfly is perfectly placed to support CMOs and CTOs in delivering integrated technology solutions that drive real business results.

I am confident that Ed’s experience and leadership will further amplify PM Dragonfly’s capabilities, fuelling their next growth chapter, and I look forward to working with him.”

Marketing Technology News: Brightcove Integrates New AWS-Powered Generative AI Solution to Enhance Its Award-Winning Customer Service

PM Dragonfly Hires Ed Flower as CEO to Drive Next Phase of Growth
Ed Flower

Ed’s appointment as CEO unlocks a new era of growth and opportunity for PM Dragonfly. With a focus on technology, data, and innovation, the consultancy is poised to enhance its client digital transformation and performance capabilities.

PM Dragonfly powers the future of marketing and realizes business value by applying human creativity to AI, data and technology.

Tquila is a corporate development and technology company founded by James McHugh in 2010. The company has had several successful builds and exits of 50 to 300 head, pure play software implementation partner businesses across multiple geographies.

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MarTech Interview with James Riess, SVP, General Manager Loyalty & Messaging @ Merkle Inc. https://martechseries.com/mts-insights/interviews/martech-interview-with-james-riess-svp-general-manager-loyalty-messaging-at-merkle-inc/ Tue, 07 May 2024 07:58:06 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=359264
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It’s becoming more crucial for B2B marketers to deploy AI powered martech to drive various customer experiences and buying journeys today. James Riess, SVP, General Manager Loyalty & Messaging at Merkle Inc. weighs in with a few thoughts:

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Welcome to this MarTech Series chat, James, tell us about yourself and your role at Merkle…

Throughout my career, I’ve taken on various roles, but my main focus has always been on helping brands grow their businesses through data-driven, technology-enabled marketing. As the General Manager of Loyalty and Messaging, I have the same opportunity on a larger scale. I support our clients in leveraging Merkle’s unique data and experience capabilities to elevate the customer experience and propel business growth.

At Merkle, we remain future-focused and have a steady pulse on the market for emerging technologies and innovative ways to enhance the services we offer our clients. To put it simply, my mission is to develop innovative strategies that deliver better outcomes for our clients.

Why are today’s consumers demanding more personalization from brand messaging and what can brand marketers do to enhance this experience in today’s crowded market?

With the growing abundance of options in the market and advancements in technology, today’s consumers are increasingly demanding more personalization from brand messaging. The heightened competition for consumer attention underscores the need for brands to stand out and connect with their audience on a deeper level. Additionally, consumers now expect tailored experiences, influenced by personalized recommendations and interactions prevalent in social media and e-commerce platforms.

To create a better consumer experience in today’s crowded market, brand marketers can utilize data-driven insights to better understand their target audience and create relevant, personalized content. Leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms can help analyze consumer behavior and preferences, allowing brands to deliver customized messages across various channels effectively.

Additionally, fostering genuine relationships with consumers through interactive engagement and personalized communication can build trust and loyalty, ultimately driving brand success in the competitive landscape.

We’d love to hear more about Merkle’s new end-to-end messaging solution and how it enables unified brand experiences?

Brands are seeking new ways to make experiences more personal, make shopping more seamless, and shorten the path to purchase by better integrating media with CRM. Consumers want consistent and relevant experiences that help them meet their goals and to be able to engage and transact with brands in their preferred channels. Intelligent Messaging meets these objectives by offering 1:1 connected customer experiences through messaging and chat apps that blend AI assistance, human interaction, technology integration, and proven CX strategies to deliver an end-to-end solution. ​With Intelligent Messaging, brands can create turnkey chat experiences that automate the entire customer journey, facilitating natural interactions through conversation.

Merkle offers the strategy, experience design, development, integration, and management of Intelligent Messaging solutions all in one place.​ We also have a unique and differentiated offering through dentu’s Global Messaging Alliance with Meta, which allows our clients to take advantage of alpha and beta Messaging products as well as industry insights from Meta.​

As Intelligent Messaging is a new solution, first piloted in 2023 and launched in Q1 2024, clients who leverage this solution now are gaining first-to-market advantage over their competitors who are not effectively engaging with customers on these important channels.

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How in your view can modern marketers use AI more optimally to scale and drive marketing goals?  

AI is the rocket-fuel that helps us accelerate client outcomes, and we are just getting started. Here are some strategies we are leveraging at Merkle to help our clients drive business growth. AI solutions like Merkle’s GenCX efficiently process vast amounts of data, offering insights into customer behavior, preferences, and trends for informed decision-making in targeting, messaging, and product offerings.

AI-powered algorithms customize marketing content based on past interactions, driving customer engagement and conversions.

AI also forecasts future trends from historical data, enabling marketers to adjust strategies for optimal campaign performance; streamlines content generation, allowing marketers to focus on strategy and creativity while ensuring consistency; facilitates customer segmentation for targeted messaging and offers.

Chat Experiences and Virtual Assistants, like our Intelligent Messaging solution, use AI to provide instant responses, guide users, and make personalized recommendations for enhanced customer service and support.

By incorporating AI into their marketing strategies, modern marketers can gain a competitive edge, streamline operations, and achieve their goals more efficiently and effectively.

Can you talk about the state of modern marketing and and what trends will dominate the space in 2024?  

It’s an understatement to say that advances in technology and innovation are revolutionizing marketing. Today, we have the ability to identify, connect, and converse with consumers in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago. Early adopters of these new capabilities will transition from siloed campaigns to always-on conversations, fostering more human and empathetic interactions with consumers. These interactions, guided by consumers based on their needs and goals, whether overtly expressed or observed passively, are shaping the future of marketing. Here are a few examples of how technology enables the humanization of marketing:

Personalization with Purpose: Artificial intelligence, data analytics, and automation enable us to understand consumer behavior at a granular level and deliver hyper-personalized experiences. However, personalization without purpose falls short of consumer expectations. Companies that leverage data to anticipate consumer needs and provide timely, relevant experiences that assist them in achieving their goals at every stage of their journey will earn consumer trust and loyalty.

Conversational Commerce: We can now design AI-powered interfaces, interactions, and experiences that feel natural, empathetic, and intuitive for users. For instance, chat experiences can employ virtual ambassadors to offer consumers information, support, and service through consumer-directed conversations that aid them in achieving their goals while delivering a more pleasant and engaging user experience.

Phygital Experiences: Emerging technologies like augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) enable brands to engage customers in immersive ways, blurring the lines between physical and digital experiences. Some brands are already integrating AR and VR to enhance the online shopping experience, allowing users to virtually try on products. Others are utilizing VR as a substitute for in-person events or conferences, offering the opportunity for personal engagement without the need for travel.  At Merkle we leverage AR and VR in gamification to transform routine interactions into immersive and unique customer experiences – motivating behavior, creating emotional connections, and earning consumer loyalty.

These examples highlight just a fraction of the advances that are making marketing more dynamic, interactive, and customer-centric than ever before.

Marketing Technology News: Driving Offline Engagement in an Era of Digital Fatigue: What Top Brands Are Doing?

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Merkle, a dentsu company, powers the experience economy. For more than 35 years, the company has put people at the heart of its approach to digital business transformation. As the only integrated experience consultancy in the world with a heritage in data science and business performance, Merkle delivers holistic, end-to-end experiences that drive growth, engagement, and loyalty.

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James Riess, is SVP, General Manager Loyalty & Messaging at Merkle Inc.

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Also catch: Episode 199 Of The SalesStar Podcast: Top Trends in Modern B2B Marketing with Emily Singer, Head of Marketing at Drift

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Four Important Factors That Are Missing in your B2B Content Strategy https://martechseries.com/mts-insights/staff-writers/four-important-factors-that-are-missing-in-your-b2b-content-strategy/ Tue, 23 Apr 2024 07:57:19 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=358491 Given the immense noise in today’s overly crowded digital marketplace, most seasoned content marketers are now moving towards newer content strategies and content formats that can help initiate the right interest from the right people at the right time.

For content marketers who are still at the stage of streamlining these efforts; these four crucial quick-tips may help.

A Deeper Understanding of your Audience

Who is your target audience? What type of content do they like consuming? Or, do they like consuming content at all?

While most marketers may create the ideal persona based on their product and service, within this lies a need to uncover a deeper understanding of your target prospect and not just the target account in your list. If for instance, your aim is to create buzz and interest for someone who leads a B2B SaaS product’s marketing team: the type of triggers and content that resonates with this profile and persona will be very different from a target prospect who leads a B2B SaaS sales team.

Using AI powered tools on your brand website to deliver and showcase content based on each person or customizing your brand landing pages accordingly to portray persona based content can actually help cut through the noise and generate interest earlier on in the buying cycle.

Content To Suit The Typical Stages of the B2B Buying Journey

The B2B SaaS buying journey has often been considered to be long winded and complex. With the growth of self-serve models though and the fact that most B2B buyers don’t want to interact with a salesperson when making a buying decision today, the onus now shifts to marketing and content teams to build content flows and campaigns that address each stage of their target account’s and target prospect’s buying journey.

A prospect at the awareness stage might find it useful to read more about a feature in a SaaS product that can enable their own end goals while a prospect at the decision making stage might convert faster if the content leans towards case studies and validations on how key competitors use the product to achieve growth goals.

Marketing Technology News: MarTech Interview with Noel Hamill, CMO @ parcelLab

Also catch: Episode 200 Of The SalesStar Podcast: B2B buying and selling habits with Raul Murguia, Sr Dir of Integrated Marketing for LinkedIn Sales Solutions

Creating the Right Content to Captivate your Audience

Put yourself in your target prospect’s and target reader’s shoes. Assuming they get hundreds of personal marketing emails as well as several business promotional emails on a daily basis, they are likely not going to consume and read through everything in their inbox, including your content marketing email.

While certain fundamentals like creative email subject lines can be used to drive opens and responses, in a tough marketplace, email content, social media content, marketing campaigns, landing pages, ebooks, webinars: all of these elements need to be captivating enough for a prospect to sit up and take notice.

This is where a combination of creative content formats (Gifs, videos, humor) can be used to get your content to stand out.

Using other digital mediums and channels (including OTT if at all!) to be more creative and reach your target audience where they are at can also enable better output down the line. Secret tip: break away from the traditional to initiate interest faster in the buying cycle.

Quality Versus Quantity

Spray and pray doesn’t work. Some of the known voices in B2B marketing, ABM, ABX and even modern go-to-market experts have validated this time and again.

Content and marketing efforts need to be more focused, narrow and as precise as possible to deliver the right interest to the right audience at the right time. Understanding who your audience is and what piques their interest basis the most sensitive part of their role is what can boost those triggers and interest in your brand.

A simple example: if you are promoting or driving brand interest for a new B2B fintech product: your target buyer would ideally involve the finance team or CRO and revenue team in a particular B2B tech company in most cases. Building fewer but quality focused content based on how B2B financiers consume content is what can help a content marketing team narrow down their efforts and generate the right results along earlier in the long winded B2B buying journey.

There is no right and wrong content strategy in today’s digital and offline marketplace. What works for a particular industry or persona needs to be tweaked to be reused or repurposed for another target industry and persona.

What should lie at the heart of this maze is a thorough breakdown of who your target audience is, where they are most active across today’s multi-channel online world and then using that data to get your brand in front of them with the most relevant type of content.

Marketing Technology News: Marketing Technology Highlights of The Week: Featuring Adobe, Dataminr, Litmus and more!

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Best Practices for B2B Content Marketing Teams and Common Mistakes to Avoid https://martechseries.com/mts-insights/staff-writers/best-practices-for-b2b-content-marketing-teams-and-common-mistakes-to-avoid/ Mon, 19 Feb 2024 10:00:01 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=354566 A potent instrument in B2B marketing is content marketing. Content fuels many marketing and sales initiatives, including blogs, eBooks, whitepapers, and more. There are several things one may do to succeed in range. However, several errors should be avoided because they can harm marketing and sales initiatives. It may take some initiative to prevent these content marketing blunders, but we provide a few alternatives to help you succeed.

1. Using Too Much Jargon

Problem: You could believe that utilizing jargon liberally in your digital marketing assets, such as blog posts, lead magnets (e-books, white papers, etc.), landing pages, email newsletters, etc., is fine and dandy when you specifically discuss business-to-business marketing. But that is not the case.

Solution: Spend some time getting to know your intended audience so you can tailor your content or text. You may modify your writing to more effectively connect with your audience when you thoroughly examine them. Or, put another way, write as they do.

2. Content Is Inapplicable to the Problems

Problem: Though having a fresh content concept is always fantastic, it is only sometimes the best idea if it addresses the frequent issues of the target audience. A team member may have the idea to write an article about the most recent technological advances. Still, if the post is too general or does not directly address your audience, it will not connect with them, leaving them searching for other ways to manage their problem.

Solution: Any marketing campaign should always be designed with a specific target market. Although the target audience could change from time to time, it should be recognized. Each audience has unique traits and pain areas that they can identify with.

3. There Is No Stated Call to Action in the Content (CTA)

Problem: An article’s content is made up of precious information. Delivering pertinent, helpful information to audiences is crucial, but motivating them to take action is equally important. Readers may need clarification about what to do next or how to find out more about the business, product, or service if there is a clear call to action (CTA).

Solution: One CTA should be the central focus of a piece of content. This provides consumers who consume the range with a straightforward course of action after finishing it. There is no set format for the CTA, although it is advised to keep it brief, direct, and to the point.

Marketing Technology News: MarTech Interview with Gagandeep Singh, Vice President of Global Marketing at Blancco Technology Group

4. Focusing Solely on Your Business

Problem: This one is another significant copywriting-related marketing error that is reasonably common in the B2B sector. B2B marketers frequently place a strong emphasis on extolling the virtues of their offering. Although having a superior product or service is undoubtedly advantageous, one may also have other things to offer.

Solution: Once more, adjusting your focus and conducting audience research is essential. Consider your website and its copy from the viewpoint of the audience. As you read the website descriptions, act as though you know nothing about your goods. Are you taking care of the user’s problems? If not, edit your language to show how your company helps its customers.

5. Poor Use of social media

Problem: Social media marketing, whether it is B2B or B2C, is crucial, and this is not news. Social media is one of the best ways to engage with potential consumers, nurture leads, increase brand recognition and authority, and develop deep connections with current clients.

The Solution: Ditch the business speak and choose a simple, sincere method of social interaction. Respond to questions and comments conversationally, using emoticons to sound more human (aka your brand voice).

Although other content marketing errors might occur, these are some of the ones that B2B marketers make the most frequently. To maximize the effect content has on viewers, it is crucial to avoid these and put the aforementioned solutions into practice.

B2B Marketing Strategies

1. Identify the positioning of your brand

You must be completely aware of your brand positioning to develop a successful plan. This sentence encapsulates the who, what, when, and how of your brand identity or how consumers see your company.

2. Decide who your target market is

Find the people who are genuinely in need of the goods or services that your business offers. You may utilize that knowledge to develop customer personas and comprehend the purchasing process, which is a beneficial tool for any marketing.

3. Analyze the competition

Conduct a competitive analysis to examine the market and discover what other companies are marketing to your target market.

4. Look through potential marketing outlets

Your competition study will show you the various marketing channels your rivals successfully employ and the ones they have yet to use.

5. B2B Email Promotion

A tried-and-true strategy for interacting with both individual consumers and company clients is email marketing.

Your efforts to generate a consistent flow of leads and outperform the competition might be seriously harmed by errors in your B2B marketing plan if you’re working with a limited marketing budget and in a cutthroat market. Therefore, make it a point to avoid these common B2B marketing errors in your upcoming initiatives to achieve more and better outcomes.

Marketing Technology News: Breaking down the Role of a B2B Social Media Marketing Manager

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MarTech Interview with Sejal Amin, Chief Technology Officer at Shutterstock https://martechseries.com/mts-insights/interviews/martech-interview-with-sejal-amin-chief-technology-officer-at-shutterstock/ Wed, 03 Jan 2024 11:08:16 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=351439
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Sejal Amin, Chief Technology Officer at Shutterstock chats about Shutterstock’s latest creative AI features and how the growing demand for personalization is fueling the need for AI-powered customization:

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Welcome to this MarTech Q&A, Sejal, tell us about yourself and your role at Shutterstock

I’m Sejal Amin, the Chief Technology Officer at Shutterstock, where I am responsible for delivering a technology vision and strategy that transforms Shutterstock’s technology platform to deliver a new and unparalleled experience to our customers and contributors.

We’d love to hear more about Shutterstock’s AI powered features and how this will enable end users?

Shutterstock has just unveiled a fresh lineup of creative AI features, empowering users to personalize stock images in our extensive library of more than 700 million assets.

These enhanced capabilities enable creators and business leaders to tailor stock assets to their unique creative requirements. With these features, users can effortlessly and swiftly craft customized content, without any prior photo editing expertise. Features like Expand Image lets you expand an image beyond its border, while Magic brush allows you to modify an image by brushing over it, then describe what you’d like added or removed via generative AI. More info on the new features can be found at shutterstock.com/discover/ai-features.

How is the market for online stock content evolving today and what trends are you seeing dominating the space?

There is a growing demand for authentic and personalized stock content. As technology advances, creators want assets quicker and easier, meaning they can build campaigns more efficiently. AI-powered customization is a rising industry trend to meet this demand.

Marketing Technology News: MarTech Interview with Billy Jones, VP of Marketing, Hootsuite

How is AI set to change the game for online creators: what are the top trends here you’d like to highlight more on?

Shutterstock has leveraged the power of AI to empower online creators. We know marketers, designers and advertisers need to create exactly what they are seeing in their mind – quickly and easily. AI-powered image generation and design features enable this desire to become a reality. This is going to become a necessity for creative platforms moving forward.

What cautionary practices would you share with first time or early users of AI powered creative tools?

Shutterstock prioritizes ethical AI and has leaned into AI in the places where it offers the greatest value to our customers and contributors, while being extremely thoughtful about limiting our use of AI in places where it does not. For example, with Shutterstock Editorial, where our goal is to create and represent Editorial imagery and video reflecting the news and real life events, we’ve seen that AI can actually present a significant risk to maintaining the journalistic integrity and authenticity of the content we offer our clients globally. As such we do not leverage AI as a part of any editorial content we offer or represent. Instead, we focus on the opportunity for AI to help enhance the metadata associated with our editorial content, making it more discoverable – with validation/verification from our desk.

Tell us about the biggest AI trends in the creative marketplace that will disrupt the future of this domain?

The ethics of AI content generation is paramount, and will only become more important as the capabilities progress. The official guiding framework that embodies Shutterstock’s long-standing values and commitment to using AI responsibly in its products and workflows is TRUST, an acronym for Training, Royalties, Uplift, Safeguards and Transparency. Most simply put, we’ve committed to training AI models on properly licensed data and offering royalties that compensate artists fairly. Shutterstock also ensures that contributors receive compensation for images licensed post-editing, and AI-generated or edited content is not eligible for submission on the platform. We also seek to uplift and promote representation that reflects the world and proactively seek ways to mitigate bias in our system. We’ve put in place safeguards to control content and protect customers and as a participant in the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), we also strive to guarantee the origin of media content by incorporating Content Credentials. And last, but not least, we believe in transparency by default in AI practices and content provenance, clearly labeling AI-generated art.

While we were the first to lead the industry and most of these practices, we’re going to see more and more focus on this in the coming months as more regulation is likely to be on the horizon and both artists and customers alike will want to know they are using this technology ethically and from ethical sources.

Marketing Technology News: Six Challenges Businesses Must Overcome in the Era of Relationship Marketing

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Shutterstock bridges the gap between idea, design, and execution, inspiring the world to create with confidence.

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Sejal Amin is Chief Technology Officer at Shutterstock

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Missed The Latest Episode of The SalesStar Podcast? Have a quick listen here!

 

Episode 191: The Future of Online Shopping with Anh Vu-Lieberman, VP of Conversion Rate and Optimization at Nogin

Episode 190: Current AR Trends in Sales and Marketing with Zac Duff, CEO and co-Founder at JigSpace

Episode 189: The Modern State of Digital Advertising with Mark Melvin, EVP and General Manager at Mirriad

 

 

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Jellyfish unveils innovative 3D DOOH for Deckers Brands’ UGG® in iconic New York City location https://martechseries.com/content/interactive-content/jellyfish-unveils-innovative-3d-dooh-for-deckers-brands-ugg-in-iconic-new-york-city-location/ Mon, 23 Oct 2023 09:45:06 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=347549 The pioneering execution across two iconic DOOH units in Times Square sees screens display 3D elements in tandem across a 15 second spot featuring the new Shasta Boot Tall

Leading digital marketing business Jellyfish today announces the rollout of an attention-grabbing 3D digital out-of-home (DOOH) campaign for the UGG® brand’s new winter lifestyle collection, to be displayed on the iconic Nasdaq and Midtown Financial LED billboards, owned by the vendor Branded Cities, in New York City’s Times Square. The Southern California-based global lifestyle brand is the first footwear brand to advertise on the new Midtown Financial board, Branded Cities confirms.

The ads debut on October 19th, with three 15-second video assets on display across the world-famous billboards. The screens will play simultaneously, showing off a new product in the UGGextreme™ range, The Shasta Boot Tall, while also forming part of a wider omni-channel campaign across social, online video, CTV and display to highlight this new collection.

Michelle Hernandez, Director, Omni Digital Marketing for the Fashion Lifestyle Group Brands at Deckers, explains: “We are delighted to partner with Jellyfish on a pioneering 3D billboard campaign in such an iconic location. We’re confident this work will generate awareness and reach for UGGextreme, which is our pinnacle collection of cold-weather boots and outerwear. This campaign and product is designed to deliver extreme protection and allow for bold self-expression, even during the coldest weather conditions.”

She continues: “The prominent location and high-impact format of the digital out-of-home units is matched by its interactivity – conveying the message of UGG’s freedom of movement, which enables you to maximize your winter (play)time with freedom and expression, no matter the weather.”

Marketing Technology News: Jellyfish Mobile: Empowering Influencers With Secure Transactions

Caroline Nichols, Account Director at Jellyfish, adds: “We are thrilled to be the lead company on this eye-catching digital out-of-home execution for UGG. There are so many possibilities to capture attention with digital out-of-home today and we are honored to help this partner and much-loved brand drive mass reach across such engaging placements, right in front of One Times Square. The units serve to showcase the freedom and style offered by UGG and we’re very excited that UGG is the first footwear brand to advertise on the Midtown Financial screen.”

Part of the Brandtech Group, Jellyfish helps brands such as Google, Netflix, Bissell, Uber and Deckers navigate, connect, and harness the platforms that drive growth and engagement. Launched in 2005, Jellyfish has become one of the industry’s most globally certified companies across Google Marketing Platform, Google Cloud, Salesforce, Amazon, and Meta. Employing almost 2,000 people across 38 offices globally, Jellyfish is proud to be at the forefront of the global digital economy. For more information, visit jellyfish.com.

 

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