SigmaWay Blog

As more and more data pours in, marketers need to keep adjusting their strategies to be updated in this dynamic ecosystem of information. Thomas Begin, vice president of strategy in Targetbase, in his special guest feature in Inside Bigdata talks about the analysis paralysis in times when many organizations are turning to consumer centric strategies. He points out the major lags in this transformation:

• Inadequate internal collaboration

• The inability to act quickly

• More focus on reporting rather than action. 

To have a look at the recommended solution to these lags follow the link http://insidebigdata.com/2015/05/05/keeping-big-data-small-to-create-engagement/

Decision making is powerful when data is coupled with insight. A survey revealed that 46% of CFOs admitted to making important decisions based solely on their gut, out of which 15% blamed poor decision making on inaccessibility of internal data. Only 23% make the effort to perform data mining for decision making. In order to make way in the competitive world, a combination of both is required for survival. According to Duncan Watts, a Microsoft researcher, ignoring data while making predictions can lead to huge losses. Both insight and data are equally important to earn better revenues. Read more at: http://www.cmswire.com/analytics/many-managers-mistrust-data-infographic/

Marketing is an important way to reach out to customers. But start-ups may find it difficult to splurge a huge amount of money for marketing. So here goes a list of 5 pocket-friendly marketing techniques: i) Social media as it is an entirely free and easy-to- learn resource. ii) Conferences are also a good platform to share knowledge about one's organization with other business people. iii) Companies can offer free trial of their services or a free sample of their product. iv) Word of mouth from influential people. v) Providing customers with the proper description of their product or service and its usefulness. Read more at: https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/5-tips-for-marketing-on-a-budget

Marketing automation is software and tactics that enable companies to nurture prospects with highly personalized and useful content that helps convert prospects to customers and turn customers into delighted customers. It therefore makes for a highly profitable investment when it comes to adding value to the existing CRM solution. Eric Scott Johnston, analyst with Studio B, in an article on Inside-CRM blog talks about the takeaways from automated content marketing:

• Improve lead quality by reducing the number of unqualified leads.

• Develop great customer insights

• and finally when all things fall in place, companies retain their customers. 

For more on this piece follow the link  http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/3-ways-automated-content-marketing-can-benefit-your-crm-solution-67854 

Cut throat competition- a phrase that is enough to describe the fierce competition in today`s business scenario. Regardless of which industry one belongs to, their competitors are always there, and keeping track of their activities and decisions, most importantly searching for their customers. So it is important for business leaders to monitor the activities of their rivals as well, and keep a tab on their competitors, in order to retain customers. There are many tools for monitoring, one such tool is spyfu, which can be used to track down what the opponents are searching online. Another way is to use the social media, such as observing what the competitors are doing in public forums and how people are responding to that. To know more, read: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brett-relander/know-your-competition-wit_b_7555660.html?ir=India&adsSiteOverride=in

In recent years over the span of the last two decades, industries have been disrupted by internet competitors. People are becoming more and more interested in online or virtual shopping than to go outdoors. From newspapers to travel agencies, there are numerous sectors which have faced the heat due to e-business expansion of their counterparts. Despite this, it seemed that some business like telecom, television media etc.  were immune to this digital onslaught, but not anymore. A second wave of internet disruption threatens not only electronic and telecom business, but also industries like taxi services, banking and cosmetics. This leaves no other alternative for existing sellers other than to switch into online trading for survival. To know more read: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7688.html

The concept of agile marketing is taken from software development. The goals are to improve the speed, predictability, transparency and adaptability in the marketing functions. Tim Matthews (VP of marketing @Incapsula_com and author of The Professional Marketer) in his article in business2community.com mentioned about the six lessons he learned while managing agile marketing teams at two companies. They are as follows:

1.  Set the right cadence.

2. Take a break.

3. Insist on metrics.

4. Prioritize realistically.

5. Don't allow overly aggressive goals.

 6. Set the work volume competition.

Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/marketing/six-lessons-learned-managing-agile-marketing-teams-01250732

“Radio, television and internet-enables computers in the 20th century created an increase in option of media channels for brands.”- Christopher Heine (Digital Editor for Adweek)
Disruption and fragmentation are causing cracks between those who make platforms and those who hold the purse strings to ad budgets. Five statements from major industry players that help them to build a good marketing strategy:
• People, let's be real here.
• More native may mean more friction.
• The pace of change nowadays can be insane for creatives.
• The good news is that progress is being made.
• Everyone’s bottom line depends on this working out.
Read more at: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/5-intriguing-takes-advertising-and-technologys-relationship-status-165409

Marketing automation a newly developed idea in marketing industry, deals with concepts of data tracking for lead, automate personal marketing activities and generate detailed reports for marketing activities. It embraces three major approaches namely lead tracking, automated execution and closed-loop reporting. At initial stages, foremost entity to consider in marketing automation is to show its value to the people dealing with checks in your company. With its involvement, few beneficiary impacts that it had generated includes, more lead output with same budget, empowered marketers to build and promote cross-channel online campaigns for user satisfaction, helped in financial justification of tracking and reports on ROI leading to no further complications in qualification or handling them onto sales, thus a smoother approach to marketing solutions.

To know more about marketing automation, please follow the link:http://www.business2community.com/marketing-automation/what-is-marketing-automation-01247668

Every organization plans to launch new a product or service, but only few of them get success. The main reason for failure is they won't able to target the right customers or they won't able to explain their product or service to customers. Jennifer Lonoff Schiff (Business and technology writer and a contributor to CIO.com) talks about steps that can help you to reduce the risk of failure:

• Make sure the product or service works – before you start selling it.
• But don’t worry if your product isn’t absolutely perfect at the get-go.
• Create a dedicated landing page with an email opt-in.
• Build and/or join a community
• Cultivate influencers in your industry or niche.
• Ask people to spread the word – and give them free product or pay them to talk about it, if necessary.
• Notify top customers and followers in advance of your release.
• Use social media to get the word out.
• Advertise on Facebook.
Read more at: http://www.cio.com/article/2937141/startups/9-tips-for-launching-a-new-product-or-service.html

Currently consumers are distracted by visual storytelling which enables the marketers to cut through the clutter thereby engaging customers over a wide range of digital channels. Data visualization tools acts as a way for the marketing leaders to generate optimal results from their organization's visual storytelling. It helps the marketers to determine the types of media that generated the highest engagement levels with different customers. It further enables to spot key consumer trends by segments and to project the best media type which would generate desired results. The use of visual storytelling combined with visualization of data will continue to gain much more importance because it makes the visual story more realistic with more prospective customers.

Read more at: http://www.tibco.com/blog/2015/06/08/2015-the-year-of-visual-storytelling/

Content marketing involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire and retain customers. This information can be presented in a variety of formats, including news, whitepapers, e-books, photos etc. It is hard, time consuming and expensive. Angela Hausman (marketing professor at Howard University) in her article in business2community.com, discussed about the steps to create a successful content marketing plan. They are:

• Start with goals.
• Audit existing content and determine where the holes are.
• Develop your business.
• Target customers.
• The Sales funnel.
• Understand your purpose.
• Develop an editorial calendar.
• Develop content.
• Promote your content.
• Measure.
• Optimize.
• Rinse, repeat.

To know more about the steps required for creating a successful content marketing plan, please follow the link: http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/12-steps-how-to-build-a-successful-content-marketing-plan-01 

Nowadays the basic motive is substantial growth of the app thereby providing value to the end user. This can be equally simple or difficult depending on the analytics and marketing platform one chooses.  However it might often seem that a system of point solutions offers the best of each system, although it limits our capability to: 

*  Create a new user acquisition strategy.

*  Collect the most accurate data about the users.

*   Use of analytics to drive marketing.

*  Track the success of app messaging.

*  Tackle issues such as user abandonment and churn ratios.

The basic things which can be done with Integrated App Analytics and Marketing are:

1. Sophisticated user attribution.

2. Personalized app marketing.

3. Remarketing to users outside of the app.

4. Omni-channel app marketing.

5.  Predicting churns.

Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/mobile-apps/5-things-you-can-only-do-with-integrated-app-analytics-marketing-01244986                                                                                                                     

Though underestimated at times, social media marketing is fast becoming a vital necessity for success of business. Due to complexity of the nature of data analysis and increasing number of social media platforms available, the task of adopting the best social strategy may appear confusing. For more productive use of social media for marketing, the author suggests the following: 1) Creating outstanding and attractive content like images, text documents, etc. 2) Adopting social marketing instead of impersonal digital marketing.  3) Developing two way communication channels with the customers.4) Doing proper research. 5) Monitoring social media 6) Being genuine Read more:-  http://www.business2community.com/social-media/key-to-mastering-social-media-marketing-01248568

Marketing has undergone transformation over years. Marketers can now measure every aspect of what customers do with a variety of metrics. Engaging with my audience to convert to sales is the key to marketing. While promoting products and services, marketers should be aware of how their brand is perceived by the audience which indicates how to communicate with them. Knowing how demographics react to different promotional strategies will help marketers formulate targeted marketing campaigns. Marketers should use social media to check what people are saying about a particular campaign and thus capture the customer sentiment. Thus the best marketing campaigns are those that are edgy and experimental. Read more about this article by Gabrielle Morse (Global Events Director) at: https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/the-4-golden-rules-for-collecting-marketing-data

The key to successful digital marketing lies in its content. Original, interesting and varied content will catch customer’s attention. Digital marketing campaigns should be both written and visual, rich in information, images, videos etc. One should keep an eye on metrics to make a note of most attracted posts so as to improve one’s content. As almost every individual now possesses a smartphone, marketers should make sure their advertisements are mobile friendly. Social media, with its rising popularity, can be used as a platform for marketing to specific demographics. Customer’s trust might show up the brand loyalty, increasing the chance of sharing and promoting their marketing on social platform. Read more about this interesting article by Maria Maguire (International Events Director) at: https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/5-ways-to-improve-your-digital-marketing

Content is king, when you try to get connected with the public. - Rachel Wolfson (Content Marketing Manager at Moogsoft). Content can help you in generating leads, increase ROI and brand awareness. One thing that distinguishes between good content marketers from exceptional one is the ability to notice their content. 5 keys takeaways as to how a content marketer can get their content noticed: • Start with a clear content marketing strategy.
• Understand your target audience.
• Practice the “3 C’s” – Create, Content, Consistently.
• Know how to correctly promote content via social media.
• Recognize the value in repurposing content.
Read more at http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/5-best-practices-ensure-content-gets-noticed-01251751#WdvE0oR3cCZs4h2p.99

According to Sushant Saini (An owner of Eyewear), branding is one of the most important functions of the marketing team. And to make branding effectiveness, marketing team need to connect with their target customers.  Essentials to make brand effective are:
• Story
• Content Marketing
• Brand association
• Creative communication
• Influential outreach
To know more about these essential, follow this link:  http://yourstory.com/2015/06/brand-building/

According to KC Claveria (Marketer from Vancouver, B.C.), if social media used rightly, can help you in maintaining better relationships with customers. According to the Mckinsey & Company report, “email conversion rates are 40times higher as compared to Facebook and Twitter combined.” This shows that for generating leads, email marketing is very important. Email marketing is better than other marketing channels because:
• With email, you’re reaching an audience that already knows you.
• There’s too much noise on social.
• People are more likely to see (and click on) your email.
• You get to say more on email.
Read more at http://www.business2community.com/email-marketing/why-email-marketing-beats-social-media-in-lead-generation-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-01246702#5FUji2OQheQ8LXzA.99

According to the Eyal Hilzenrat (Vice president of products and partnerships at YouAppi), mobile marketing is the future of marketing and installing the app is the beginning of this journey. And to the performance of your mobile marketing, use the Engagement metrics, Revenue metrics and Interest Metrics. KPI to mobile marketing are:
• Number of times the mobile app was accessed during the first 24 hours / first week (after installation)
• Permission granted to the app
• Time spent in-app
• Number of screens/pages accessed during in-app visit
• Number of subscriptions / registration
• Purchases
• Number of items placed in a shopping cart
• Number of articles read
• Number of pages visited
• Social Shares
• Retention rates
• Brand awareness
Read more at: http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/top-12-key-performance-indicators-for-maximizing-mobile-app-revenue/621659