Smart technology is part of the Internet of Things (IoT), and it is referred as the high-tech products equipped with an Internet connection which enables to communicate data to the owner. Now kitchen appliances, thermostats etc. are being created with sensors that can communicate information via an app or through email. These are meant to improve the quality of life for consumers, but it also opens up new marketing opportunities. These technologies are giving marketers an opportunity to know what people are buying, how satisfied they are with their purchases, and what they may be interested in buying in the future. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/understanding-internet-things-and-mobile-marketing

Mobile commerce has outpaced desktop e-commerce in 2014. According to a report by Mobile Marketing Magazine, it was found that mobile advertising grew at a rate six times faster than that of global desktop marketing. Business Insider also forecasted that mobile payment volume in the United States will increase to $818 billion by the year 2019. So, according to Brett Relander (Founder, Launch & Hustle)’s article link now it has become important to look at the mobile marketing trends for 2015:  http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/mobile-marketing-trends-2015-0

In this age of competition, it is important for sales people to be up-to-date. According to venture capitalist and Internet guru Mary Meeker, in 2012, 13% of all Internet traffic was executed from mobile devices. If sales team is equipped with a mobile CRM, it will help an organization to be flexible. It is also a proven way to boost sales, increase productivity and company revenue. To know more about the strategic advantages of using a mobile CRM software, follow: http://www.maximizer.com/blog/5-strategic-advantages-to-using-a-mobile-crm-software/

Many online retailers nowadays are using big data to personalize their consumers’ shopping experiences which in turn increased their revenue and brand loyalty. Tracey Wallace (Managing Editor, Bigcommerce), writes in her article link about how to increase repeat customers, average order value and, increase your online store revenue: : http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/data-insight-action-4-ways-generate-roi-ecommerce-analytics

51% of brands believe real-time social media engagement is their biggest challenge on social media. According to a research it was found that 72% of customers expect brands to reply within an hour. So, it is Imperative to know how brands can meet their customers' expectations? Sofie De Beule (Community Manager, Engagor), writes in her article link about some tips to meet customers' expectations on social media:  http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/3-tips-meet-your-customers-expectations-social-media

In a recent study it was found that 38% of marketers plan to shift spend from traditional advertising to digital advertising in 2015, 42% are planning to do advertising with more B2C marketers, and 34% are planning to move spend to digital than B2B marketers. It was further found that marketers plan to allocate more budget on social media advertising, social media marketing, social media engagement, location-based mobile tracking, and mobile applications. Read more at: http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2015/26900/2015-digital-marketing-budgets-top-priorities-metrics-and-challenges

According to a recent study it was found that the most-visited websites in the US have on an average of  75 technologies in their marketing clouds, delivering anything to a user and only 13% of their IT people say they are "very effective" at managing those technologies. Read more at: http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2015/26934/three-threats-lurking-in-your-marketing-cloud-and-how-to-bust-them

According to a new study by Teradata 2015 Global Data-Driven Marketing, it was revealed that companies and marketers are developing business value from data, integrated marketing platforms, and customer-centric data-driven marketing strategies. The study also found that more accurate decisions are key benefits of using data, 38 percent of the marketers said that their biggest challenge is improving customer acquisition and retention and 90 percent of marketers said that making marketing individualized is a priority. Read more at: http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/digital-marketing-news/90-percent-of-marketers-say-individualised-marketing-is-the-future/1486

According to the market study by ABI Research, it was found that revenues generated from integrating, storing, analyzing, and presenting Internet of Things (IoT) data will reach $5.7 billion in 2015 and it is also estimated that it will account for nearly one-third of all big data and analytics revenues. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/how-iot-analytics-will-reach-57-billion-2015-0

Small to medium-sized businesses use contact management systems (CMS), where a single sales person interacts with the entire client base and they replace CMS with CRM system when their clientele increases. Marketing can be done using CMSs, but with CRM systems one can extract sales data more implicitly. CRM systems allow marketers to target customers that the system has identified by analyzing and CMSs reveal when last time a customer purchased a product or service. Nowadays, vendors advertise their CRM products with features that allow for the integration of CMSs but in reality, data from the contact management software can only be extracted and imported into the CRM system. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/is-it-time-to-integrate-your-contact-management-software-with-your-crm-software-65416

Visual marketing enables an organization to show products without telling people about them and it also helps brands to share their business and personal stories. Visual marketing can help organization to inspire, connect and engage with their audience quickly and better than a simple text message. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/power-visual-content-marketing-and-brand-storytelling-nutshell-0

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) consists of different techniques to connect a search engine's technology. SEM include SEO and PPC (Pay-Per-Click) ads. SEO and SEM are often used interchangeably. But, SEO is a subset of SEM. The question here arises that what is the difference between SEO and SEM. SEO's aim is to provide organic search results for free while with SEM, search are not always be free as it uses paid ads for the certain keywords on search engine results page. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/what-main-difference-between-seo-and-sem

Consumers are purchasing online and so e-commerce sites have become very important. Thus ecommerce security becomes important. E-commerce dealers must be able to ensure protection for cardholder data and be able to provide strong access control measures through the payment card industry data security standard (PCI DSS). Heather Gilroy (Brand Development Manager at Personnel Checks), writes in this article link about some ways to improve e-commerce security:  http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/e-commerce-digital-marketing/4-ways-to-instantly-improve-your-ecommerce-security/1454

Nowadays retailers are utilizing big data to improve price, product, and placement effectiveness to new in-store experiences that influence social media. But, still there is a partial connection between these innovative ideas and the real time experience in each store. So, retailers need to get real-time data from the shop floor and pass it to the decision makers and in turn can make a real difference to both profitability and customer experience. In an era where consumer behavior is changing rapidly, retailers also need to change fast by empowering those on the shop floor to respond in real time. Retailers need to ensure right products are at the right price, on the right shelf and at the right time with the help of operational analytics. Read more at: http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/customer-experience/big-data-in-a-mobile-world-shop-floor-decision-making/1460

Technology is always changing rapidly. Contact centers are technology driven and therefore in the contact center industry, monitoring of new trends and implementing the changes becomes important. Mobility, social media, video and cloud technology are some of the communication services trends that will be dominating in 2015. Read more at: http://www.callcentertimes.com/Home/tabid/37/ctl/NewsArticle/mid/395/CategoryID/1/NewsID/926/Default.aspx

Speech analytics or audio mining is used to analyze spoken words that reveal information when an interaction takes place between the contact centers and organizations and it optimizes workers performance and enhances customer experience. Speech analytics technology is used mostly in call centers to extract valuable business intelligence. North America is the strongest initial market for speech analytics and this market is expected to grow from $241.8 million in 2014 to $696.2 million by 2019, at a CAGR of 23.6% from 2014 to 2019. Read more at: http://www.sys-con.com/node/3287613

2014 was the year of mobile apps, mobile payments, and mobile-friendly websites. But 2015 will be a year of customer centricity. Customer centric is all about the customer- understanding of a customer’s value and what their significance to the business profitability. Benoit Gruber (VP Corporate Communications, Sage ERP X3), writes in his article link about the strategies that will ensure your customer centricity: http://www.callcentertimes.com/Home/tabid/37/ctl/NewsArticle/mid/395/CategoryID/1/NewsID/918/Default.aspx

Marketing is nowadays moving away from untargeted push-messaging to building customer relationships. Identity is important in one-to-one marketing. We must understand how organizations can create customer identity. Russell Loarridge in his article writes about the key challenges that today’s marketers face in building customer identity: http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/digital-marketing-features/marketing-s-new-imperative-customer-identity-management/1446

Software as a Service (SaaS) and subscription cloud-based software are becoming popular nowadays. But, small businesses should ask these following questions before selecting any cloud based software: which ones are the best for business? what is the cost? and are they better than the solutions you have now? Logan Roberts (Strategy Manager at Entech, an IT Consulting and Managed Services Provider), writes in the article link about cloud software a small business should consider: http://www.business2community.com/tech-gadgets/4-cloud-options-small-businesses-consider-01130318

According to a new research it was found that 26% of marketers have never heard of marketing automation, and a further 49% are only partly familiar. 60% revealed that implementation of an automated technology had a positive impact on their marketing communications. Read more at: http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/digital-marketing-news/more-than-a-quarter-of-marketers-unaware-of-marketing-automation/1451