No-code and low-code tools are on the rise, with thousands of businesses and makers turning to a faster and cheaper way to test, validate, and build out their ideas. Leading the way, you have companies such as Zapier, Webflow, and Airtable transforming the way we work.
Video content is on the rise in the current B2B world, with many marketers implementing videos into their buyer outreach strategies, ABM plays and more, to engage with buyers in the digital age. With this surge in video usage, it’s only natural that innovative or tech-savvy marketers would want to get in on the action.
Following the lead of Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox, this January Google announced the end of support for third-party cookies in Chrome by 2022. Simultaneously, the company promoted its “Privacy Sandbox” initiative as an industry collaboration to develop new privacy friendly methods of audience targeting that don’t rely on unique IDs or individual cross-site tracking and offer personalization with anonymity.
Most advertisers have pulled back their spending this year, but streaming services are marketing themselves as heavily as ever.
Account-based marketing strategy and personalization technology are the ultimate dynamic duo when it comes to B2B online marketing. There’s nothing to expand the capabilities of an ABM focus on high-value target accounts and verticals like personalization software, because it allows you so much control over your website and cross-channel marketing on an individual or segmentation basis, in a completely scalable way.
Throughout my career, I have both taken inspiration from and found practical guidance in a principle of servant leadership: “Make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served.”
30-second summary:
• Even in countless B2B firms today, marketing still owns top-of-funnel emails and lead gen that ultimately gets passed to sales a la the baton method at a certain point. But this iteration should be firmly positioned in the rearview mirror instead, as we modernize and evolve.
• Even as marketing is taking on more bottom-of-funnel responsibility, sales is taking on more top-of-funnel activities. They must become comfortable sourcing email addresses, prospecting new leads, emailing prospects, and leveraging social media. Making sure each department owns the right things, rather than staying stuck in their status quo, is critical in this new environment.
• The goal with this new era of orchestration is for marketing to support sales cycles and help accelerate deal velocity, working together in an integrated and synchronous manner. The two departments need to bid adieu to the old hand-off baton routine and instead operate as a soccer team, passing the ball back and forth down the field.
• The rise of recurring revenue models and the increased importance of expansion revenue means the vast majority of revenue is generated after the initial sale. This is a fundamental mismatch that needs to be resolved
With office workers at home for the majority of 2020, it’s not a surprise that out-of-home advertising has been hit hard.
According to the WFA (World Federation of Advertisers), out-of-home ad spend was down by 49% for the first half of the year, and is 39% down on planned spend for the second half so far.
When thinking about content and asset management, businesses often default to discussions about technology and platforms, says Charis Kumpula, Marketing Strategy & Performance Director at AKQA New Zealand. “What really lies at the heart of the challenges that businesses face is the proliferation of technology and platforms.”
This week we’ll look at how terms that were trending in late June are faring today. By June, most U.S. states had reopened. Black Lives Matters protests were growing worldwide, and retail sales grew more than expected.
Gone are the days of happy hours with prospects. Because of social distancing, sales and marketing teams need to find new ways to generate demand and close deals. On top of this fact, B2B marketers are expected to do more with fewer resources and with strategies limited to digital engagement.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
For decades, marketers have been trying to achieve the “holy grail” or marketing perfection: reaching the right person, with the right message, at the right time.
“Simply put, the lasting change of this period of time is digital transformation.”
30-second summary:
- The end of third-party cookies brings an opportunity for brands to build relationships of trust with their customers. Ultimately, cultivating trust comes down to how brands handle customer data, however they come by it.
- Part of adopting a new approach to engaging with data is considering when and how first-party personal information is collected. The “how” is an important foundational detail, as it may set the tone for the marketer’s relationship with the customer, determining whether or not a customer chooses to opt-in to share their information at all.
- Even after consent is obtained, customers and prospects have the right to change their minds. It’s an ongoing conversation between a customer and a brand, and so the ability to grant or revoke consent at multiple points in time is critical.
- Smart data use provides relevancy, and the brands that are positioned to thrive in a world without third-party cookies will likely be those that recognize a simple truth: You earn the right to be personal by first being relevant.
- Ultimately, it’s up to the brand to use it to deliver better content and experiences and grow its customer relationships.
At a time when digital media appears to be accelerating share gains vs. traditional media, some big questions are looming regarding its underlying veracity, especially the accountability and measurement of its audience delivery.
A brand new report finds marketers are facing a rapidly evolving growth mandate and marketing data is key to successfully meeting challenging environment
One of the many benefits of e-commerce is that it provides retailers with access to a global market. But, despite being accessible to customers in seemingly the same way no matter where in the world they are based, consumption patterns and shopping habits differ across countries.
Chief marketing officers (CMO) of brands need to meet the needs of consumers and provide them with different options during the Covid-19 pandemic.
C-suite executives say COVID-19 has accelerated their digital plans by as much as a decade in a matter of months, according to a poll by McKinsey & Company.
The digitisation of an organisation’s offerings accelerated by seven years on average around the world because of COVID-19 and subsequent restrictions, according to a poll of nearly 900 C-suite executives conducted in July by McKinsey & Company.
30-second summary:
• A rapidly changing advertising environment has led marketers to cut back and refocus their ad spend
• Agile marketers can adapt to this environment by pivoting their short-term ad budgets towards omnichannel strategies
• An approach focused on connecting with the consumer across multiple channels enables brands to tailor campaigns to the values of the consumer
• With the right processes in place, omnichannel marketing provides flexibility in campaigns, more efficient use of ad budgets, and personalized consumer insights
In the last presidential election cycle of 2016, $10 billion was spent on political advertising across the U.S. But considering more than half of that is spent within the month leading up to the election, this can have a significant impact on marketing campaigns, especially for the brands that rely heavily on holiday sales. And when you consider that:
• Digital is trending +200% cycle-over-cycle
• The Covid-19 crisis is forcing more online campaigning
• 50% of campaign media budgets in October will be spent on Facebook and Google
• A majority of political spending will be spent in just a few key battleground states
On the heels of recent news that apex TV advertiser Procter & Gamble no longer considers the upfront vital, Advertiser Perceptions released findings of a survey of major advertisers and agencies indicating that -- while some reforms are definitely desired -- the upfront still is an important way to buy and sell media.
Dive Brief:
• Kraft Mac & Cheese is letting consumers send their friends and families boxes of its product in a sexually suggestive campaign that looks to provide comfort during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a news release.
• Through Oct. 11, users can visit enjoynoods.com or respond to Kraft's official page on Twitter to complete an order form that will "send noods" — either a box of mac and cheese or a coupon to redeem the item at grocery stores — to someone they care about. The first 7,000 respondents who use the #SendNoods and #Giveaway hashtags will be able to participate while supplies last.
• A digital spot supporting the promotion features actor and comedian Vanessa Bayer as she struggles to clarify that participants should send noodles, not nude pictures. The provocative marketing play falls in line with recent Kraft efforts and could help sustain a sales boost the brand has received during the pandemic.
At the end of October the government’s furlough scheme will come to an end. So far, the economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic has been V-shaped, with data in areas including retail sales, credit card spending, eating out and retail footfall rising quickly following a dramatic fall during lockdown.
30-second summary:
• Old point and shoot methods of SEO are unsustainable
• Agile marketers are paving the path forward combining technology and talent
• Machine learning is helping search marketers remove repetitive and mundane tasks
• COVID has accelerated digital transformation that was underway well before
• Combining business intelligence and search intelligence is a must
In the modern retail landscape, digital is no longer a threat to the in-store shopping experience. In fact, smart retailers have come to see e-commerce as a tool to boost in-store foot traffic. This represents a new phenomenon called ROPO (research online, purchase offline), where consumers start their shopping journeys online but complete them in-store.
With more than 85 percent of companies using social media to market their products or services, it has become very hard to stand out from the crowd in the digital space. If you want to take your social media efforts to the next level and see a sound ROI from online campaigns, here are our suggestions for success.
Even when you’re excellent at making the sale, you still need people to know you exist in the first place.
Dive Brief:
• Under Armour is in the midst of shifting from a product-led approach to customer-led as the company focuses on the intersection of consumer products and backend technology, according to Paul Fipps, chief experience officer at Under Armour, while speaking during Sapphire Ventures' CIO Summit last week. In his current role since February, Fipps joined the company in 2014 and has served in various roles, including SVP of global operations, CIO and chief digital officer.
• The company is using its cloud data platform to create consumer profiles, called the "focused performer," which focuses on customers with "a competitive mindset or athletic pursuit," said Fipps. Under Armour is relying on data pulled from apps in Under Armour's portfolio, including MapMyFitness, EndoMondo, and MyFitnessPal, to cultivate the profiles.
• In July, the company launched its revamped e-commerce platform with a new customer relationship management stack, said Fipps. The e-commerce platform "now aligns with the majority of our global [e-commerce] business on one platform," the company said in its Q2 2020 earnings.
Around a third of e-commerce companies say they have no plans to launch marketing campaigns during peak season this year.
The figure of 33% who are choosing to opt out compares with just 6% who opted out last year, researchers for UK optimisation company Yieldify found.
Every year since 2012, Gartner’s annual CMO Spend Survey has tracked marketing budget as a proportion of company revenue. Over recent years the story has been one of budget stability, with the average marketing budget hovering around the 11% mark. At the start of 2020 this budget stability was intact, with budgets across the nine major industries Gartner tracks in North America and Western Europe reporting average marketing budgets of 11% of total company revenue.
As marketers continue to face shrinking budgets, many are facing a new challenge—how to stretch a dollar on their martech stack. The COVID-related revenue slowdown has forced even many large marketing departments to think small when it comes to purchasing.
Dive Brief:
• Twenty percent of the brands on Brand Keys' Loyalty Leaders List are new to the annual survey's top 100, the most newcomers in the poll's 24-year history, according to a press release shared with Marketing Dive.
• Brands such as Disney+ (in the No. 7 position), Clorox (No. 30), Purell (No. 41), Charmin (No. 74), Zoom (No. 48) and Ben & Jerry's (No. 61) made their first appearance on the list while the biggest gainers among brands that previously appeared include Smirnoff, Dollar Tree, Geico and YouTube. Additionally, 18 brands disappeared from the list, such as McDonald's, Expedia, Under Armour, LinkedIn and Delta, while Avis, Ford, T.J. Maxx and Uber saw their ranking drop precipitously.
• Winning consumer loyalty during the first few months of the pandemic was a matter of "'who showed up?' and 'who delivered,'" said Brand Keys President Robert Passikoff in the press release, as consumers spent more time at home amid medical and economic uncertainty.
While it may seem counterintuitive, process can increase your marketing agility. Like oil and water, process and agility are challenging to blend. Processes are firm, exacting and inflexible. Agility is fluid, iterative and flexible. But the two can be successfully combined.
We’ve all heard about the looming potential marriage of adtech and martech. The topic is mentioned whenever there is an adtech merger or acquisition or any other kind of large change or transformations in our industry.
The advertising and media industry, like many, have taken a hit from the Covid-19 pandemic. But, unlike a host of others, it’s been fragile for a number of years. Global advertising spend is forecasted to fall by 9.1% by 2021.
Last year at Google Marketing Live, Google said it would be unifying custom affinity and custom intent audiences under a custom audience option. Custom audiences are available now in Google Ads for Display, Discovery, Gmail and YouTube campaigns.
Today’s macro-economic disruption has failed to dampen digital transformation plans, with 52 percent* of companies stating they will increase their spending on digital transformation, according to a global research study from IFS.
Automation and governance are critical to solving the complex, inefficient and disconnected processes that block businesses from taking their digital capabilities to the next level.
We love the personal service when shopping, but how much are we prepared to trade-off for that truly customized online experience? And which parts of our private data are we willing to share, and why?
Only 49% of marketing organisations report they have a dedicated marketing operations leader, according to a recent survey by Gartner. Those organisations with a marketing operations leader are more effective and better utilise their investments – including marketing technology (martech) – than those without, the research group says.
Apple Maps currently relies on Yelp and TripAdvisor for local business reviews and related content such as images. That could begin to change with iOS 14; the question is: how disruptive will it be for Apple’s partners and the “review economy” in general?
As anxieties continue to mount from an unclear future, brands must swiftly adjust messaging to reflect our current times. Many companies’ initial reactions may be to push out uplifting messages to counteract unpleasant realities. However, brands need to beware of contributing to Toxic Positivity. Although consumers are seeking comfort, overly positive messaging can be counterproductive as they undermine the pain the world is experiencing.
The images your brand uses are so much more than just pretty accents to entice social media users to stop scrolling. Visual communication can be more powerful at achieving marketing goals than any ad or tweet copy, so the visual content you share deserves a great deal of attention.
Artificial intelligence, or AI, has been a buzzword in the martech industry for years, but in recent months AI within digital asset management (DAM) technology has been especially popular. But what specifically does having AI enablement in DAM entail, and how will it benefit marketers?
Our understanding of data-driven marketing and advertising has changed in the last six months, evolving into a real reflection of what is occurring with consumers in the changing economic, health and social environment.
As more consumers shop online, many companies are pivoting their marketing strategies to focus on digital channels. But smart marketing now requires more than simply reallocating resources for e-commerce. Messages that worked last year may strike the wrong tone with consumers who are navigating health, social and economic uncertainty now.
Three topics have dominated much of the conversation in B2B marketing circles over the past few years – technology, data, and content. The explosive proliferation of marketing technologies has been well documented. For example, Scott Brinker’s latest graphic of the marketing technology landscape includes 8,000 martech solutions. “Data analytics” has become one of the hottest buzzwords in marketing, and many companies are investing heavily in marketing analytics capabilities.
75% of respondents share that they are more likely to purchase from a brand that offers personalized services, Accenture found.
Discover how centuries-old human psychology principles can be remixed for proven success with today's paid search customers.
30-second summary:
• COVID-19 has decimated budgets and lengthened the B2B sales cycle for everything but the core essentials most companies need to operate.
• As economies reopen and the road to recovery advances, the brands that will reach prospects this year who then convert into buyers in 2021 are the ones who take a human-centric approach in how they first listen and then talk to their audience.
• To remain competitive, B2B companies must adopt human-centric marketing approaches with a digital twist that will help them engage, retain, and build connections with their audience online.
When a company starts seeing its first successes in a marketing strategy, it feels exciting. Growth can be massive and exponential at the start, but over time, the massive numbers can start to taper off. The longer you hold onto any one marketing strategy or tactic, the less an audience might be engaged in your marketing.
Experience is everything, and as marketers, we want to create memorable experiences for our clients and their customers across all touch points. So, when life shifted overnight to an unrecognizable state due to the pandemic, we also had to make the shift — as consumers and as business professionals. Although these changes were unexpected and, yes, overwhelming in the moment, I take comfort in the fact that I can now clearly see how we have become more agile, prepared, personalized and innovative as a result.
The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated digital transformation across every conceivable sector and function. But in light of new knowledge emerging from the ‘new normal’, it is more important than ever to reassess tried and tested approaches to digital transformation. Richard Graham, an Associate Director at Coeus Consulting, shares six considerations to keep in mind.
Recent research from the Global Data Centers, a division of NTT, revealed that more than half of digital transformation projects are currently delayed due to ‘the hesitancy gap’. According to the study, IT teams are costing businesses millions by laying the groundwork for digital transformation projects and not fully executing them, despite being in favor of many emerging technologies.
A new study in the Journal of Marketing explores how a failure-tolerant corporate culture leads to re-attracting displaced customers and increased firm profits
Optimizing a site for organic search can be overwhelming when you’re staring at a blank slate. Where do you start?
You could optimize any of your pages for one of the thousands of keywords your visitors search for. Or you could create new content to fill the top of the sales funnel. And what about those technical issues, or the need to acquire more links?
“Content is king” has been a very common phrase in the marketing field for years. This mantra has certainly become part of our language, maybe even part of our DNA.
But I think this is one of those common phrases that we take for granted that may actually be meaningless. You probably know it, somewhere deep inside. I think something else is the king.
Let’s unwrap that today.
It’s important to maintain documentation about a martech stack. Stacks typically have dozens of components used by dozens of people, and keeping track of everything is tough. By maintaining documentation, important details are shared more easily and less likely to fall through the cracks.
As a marketer in the SaaS industry, you’re constantly under pressure to not just have a predictable funnel and deliver pipeline but to also showcase marketing attribution, all while staying under a tight budget.
With social distancing and other regulations in place, I think it’s fair to say that the dreaded ‘c-word’ has dramatically moved the goal posts for experiential marketing and the way brands physically engage with customers.
According to a recent report by Hinge, professional services firms that excel in marketing and business development enjoy higher growth rates and business success. Elizabeth Harr, a partner at Hinge, shares what they are doing to outshine the rest.
In 2020, we learned a lot about what it means to have a modern, agile marketing strategy. The improvisation phase is over, and it is now time to take longer-term decisions that will affect our marketing activities in the years to come.
Companies rely on their data to answer difficult questions about any and all of their essential business entities for analytics purposes. But it’s a hit-or-miss game when businesses lack an accurate and semantically consistent data-driven strategy for all domains across the organization. Everyone realizes that customers drive revenue, but what about the specific insights that can show the business where to focus next?
With COVID-19 grinding in-person marketing to a stop, marketers are putting even more pressure on the original “king”: email. But with the renewed focus comes the responsibility to make sure you are executing with best practices in mind.
Good list of podcast for many operations topics including: marketing and sales alignment, rev ops, sales ops and support ops
There’s a podcast out there for just about every hobby or niche interest. Plenty of them are aimed at tech professionals — especially founders, entrepreneurs and marketers. But when it comes to podcasts catering to operations pros, the pickings get slimmer.
Ad-blocking has been a source of ire for digital publishers for years. But fewer consumers are using the software as websites adopt less intrusive advertising formats that don't annoy readers.
The Covid-19 pandemic led to a massive deceleration in the global economy, as organizations and even societies have been forced to wind down their activities in line with lockdown restrictions. The UN estimates that worldwide economic losses from the pandemic will surpass $1 trillion. Yet despite these immediate and painful costs, a notable side-effect of the pandemic is that it seems to have pushed digital initiatives even further up the agenda for many organizations. The ability to launch new digital initiatives quickly has become even more crucial, so many organizations are now reassessing their capability to accelerate digital transformation and innovate faster than ever.
Digital transformation requires buy-in at all levels of your organization. Here's how to create a tailored communications and engagement plan for four crucial groups
30-second summary:
• Creative team members are often left out of technology decision making, or included too late
• When creatives are left out, problems might not be identified until it’s too late, and they may not adopt the new technology
• Including creatives earlier can ensure they are bought in, and that issues are addressed early on
• Creating a process that allows for creative to ask questions, demo the product and scenario test can ensure success
Years of economic growth have been wiped out by COVID-19. However, the story for e-commerce has been the opposite: an acceleration of growth that otherwise might have taken years.
Over the past several months, we’ve all experienced our share of drive-by graduation celebrations, quiet anniversaries spent snuggling on the couch, improvised at-home kids’ birthday celebrations, and backyard weddings with the bare-minimum guests. COVID-19 has forced us to reinvent how we mark special occasions, in ways that are hyperlocal — many so local that they don’t even extend past our front door. And as spending shifts to at-home activities, people are also being more frugalPDF in response to the economic impact of the pandemic. These trends are likely to persist well beyond the reopening of the economy, as safety concerns linger, companies take a fresh look at their workforce strategy and allow employees to continue working from home, and the economic shock reverberates.
Marketers have been tracking attribution for owned and paid media for years. With the rise of social media and influencer marketing, however, brands are having a more difficult time solving the attribution problem.
When the coronavirus outbreak forced countries around the world into lockdown, brands responded by reducing their ad spend in a bid to cut back on marketing expenses. According to the World Economic Forum, ad spend was down 9% on average across Europe by June while the UK and Germany pulled spending back by a larger 12% each.
Though the B2B digital ad market represents a small slice of total US digital ad spending, it is thriving as the coronavirus pandemic continues to plague parts of the world and hinder the economy.
he demise of third-party cookies could disrupt targeted advertising, but marketers are determined not to let that happen.
Digital asset management (DAM) is critical to content marketing, but new research suggests that many marketers have trouble hunting down their assets and leveraging them on a regular basis.
Marketing technology or MarTech is a key part of any business's marketing today. This is thanks to the massive developments in AI and machine learning. AI-based marketing tools are more affordable than ever before and can support every important marketing activity.
We’ve spilled plenty of collective ink examining how the COVID-19 outbreak impacted global commerce.
The virus had plenty of unanticipated consequences. For instance, while eCommerce and sales through remote channels like click-and-collect surged, we saw a corresponding jump in fraud and chargeback activity. That’s just one example; it’s hard to identify any aspect of the global market that wasn’t transformed to some degree by COVID-19.
30-second summary:
• Data-intelligence provider Infogroup published a guide that contains five use cases that agencies can use to better serve the changing needs of brands and clients.
• The use cases cover a variety of topics from creating new client pitches to developing personas using intelligence, and improving campaign performance.
• You can download the free guide, How Consumer Data Can Deliver the Ultimate Competitive Advantage for Agencies, from ClickZ.
There has never been a time when customer experience was more important than it is today. Customers expect a personalized experience when they deal with a business, and according to a report from Epsilon, 80% of customers are more likely to make a purchase when businesses provide a personalized experience. Personalization improves the customer’s experience, helps drive sales, and increases customer loyalty.
n 2019, Hallam, Google’s Premier Partners Growing Businesses Online 2019 award winners, published one in a series of eBooks: The Future of Digital Marketing: 2019 and beyond. Covid-19 has ground the world to a halt, but has accelerated digital marketing, taking it down paths that have not been ventured before.
0-second summary:
• Search marketing is evolving at lightning speed alongside the consumer.
• One company’s challenge can be another’s opportunity.
• Activating search and market insights has become mission-critical for brands.
• Brands need to stay on top of what’s happening with both the consumer and the SERP.
• Creating and optimizing content that enhances a consumer’s experience is key.
• Jim Yu shares five search opportunities you’ll want to have your eye on as you strategize for the rest of 2020 and beyond.
In successful digital transformations, people who believe change is possible become the driving force. Has your organization taken the right steps to get there?
COVID-19 has made a dramatic impact on the way marketers interact and engage with their customers today. Brands around the world understand that customers are more sensitive and mindful of the current circumstances that have emerged from the ongoing global pandemic crisis. For those who have stayed away from truly connecting with their customers, they would still believe that an effective brand management strategy during a global crisis as bad as COVID-19 pandemic revolves around Marketing, Customer Experience and Services. But, for a proactive martech leader, all these are just a pedestal to build familiarity with customers, not sustain a private relationship during unforeseen circumstances.
From the consumer’s point of view, advertising hasn’t evolved.
Digital ads mimic print’s design as simply a space on a page. And video ads take the old TV approach of interrupting content.
Influencer marketing has the potential to deliver greater efficiencies and return on investment, yet marketers have long struggled to measure its impact effectively.
COVID-19 is changing consumer behaviour, purchase patterns, buying criteria and touchpoints with companies. A recent Deloitte consumer survey in the Indian market revealed that:
▪ 69% respondents were more likely to buy from brands that they trust
▪ 53% respondents felt safe in visiting stores or in receiving in-person services
▪ 38%-56% respondents preferred online channel, depending on product category
When does personalization cross the line into creepy?
30-second summary:
• The modern C-suite requires CMOs to be able to touch upon, manage and measure all aspects of a business, drive and optimize customer experience and be able to consistently scale revenue.
• There are five core skills essential for the modern CMO to succeed: Team Leadership; Adeptness with data; Practiced in Personalization; Proficient in AI and Machine Learning; and Traditional skills.
• The modern CMO has had to evolve and adapt more than ever before.
• CMOs must embrace change and use a blend of technology and traditional skills to bring value to an organization.
• Understanding customer needs and perspectives and relating them to C-suite members will carry the company forward and cement the position of the CMO.
Decision makers in their respective silos are generally unaware of the value in the data Google shares so it's your job to disperse this knowledge across your organization.
The covid-19 pandemic is having a serious effect on commercial activity across the world, producing a state of economic recession. Many businesses are seeing their income fall, while their costs remain. Demand is still there, but government enforced shut-downs and social distancing has resulted in buying decisions being deferred so that sales income is greatly reduced, or non-existent. At the same time, costs remain and may even go up. The result is that profits are reduced or non-existent and losses increase. To survive these extra-ordinary times, and the inevitable losses, businesses will have to reduce costs as far as possible, relying on any limited income they can produce and their reserves to see them through this situation.
30-second summary:
• The pandemic has pushed brands to pivot creative and messaging.
• As opportunities to engage with consumers proliferate, the traditional and manual creative process is not suited for achieving volume or engaging with consumers.
• Creative Automation (CA) speeds up campaign production and launches to better capture consumer mind share.
• CA provides revenue-boosting opportunities for brands.
The use of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is expanding rapidly across industries, geographies, and organizational sizes, with organizations chasing benefits including cost reduction, operations optimization, improved customer experience, fewer errors, easier management and control, and quick implementation and ROI. That’s driving increasing RPA spending: Gartner projects spending on RPA software to hit $1.3 billion this year, and Forrester forecasts a $2.9 billion RPA software market in 2021.
Now that the #StopHateForProfit ad boycott has basically run its course, we’re learning more about the effort, its impact on Facebook, and how brands reallocated their social budgets in July.
Like it or not, you’re now an online company. Everyone is. It’s where business gets done. And the events of this year have certainly contributed to this new online business market. You might be surprised to know that a digital marketing strategy can actually be more cost effective, and provide more measurable results, than traditional marketing.
30-second summary:
• Digital channels are booming. Ecommerce activity has grown 5-10 years in the space of 3 months.
• Digital-first companies who have been agile in directing investment to organic search are seeing the best results.
• Challenges in companies are mostly organizational. Better alignment is needed between marketers and engineers.
• One tip for marketers? Invest in the website.
Sales enablement is changing - the prospect has changed the terms of engagement. Russell Wurth of Showpad gave me his take on how to deliver the sales experience today's customers need. Is sales operations emerging?
The CMO is said to be the most exposed job in a company: study after study there has been a consistent story for at least ten years that CEOs don’t trust their CMO and marketing teams. The changing face of marketing means that your traditional CMO needs to evolve their tool kit to be still seen as relevant in todays landscape.
Studies and experience from every economic downturn confirms that firms that maintain marketing expenditures recover more quickly and gain share after the the disruption.
The Clorox Co., which owns brands like Glad trashbags, Rainbow Light vitamins and Kingsford charcoal, is putting advertising at the heart of its strategy in response to COVID-19 and the recession following in its wake.
