Leader’s Blog

Titanium is a huge step toward closing the gap on multiple version, same application development cycles. The primary advantages to companies will be reduced costs, mitigated risk of bugs, and efficient management of a single code base, in turn allowing brands to deliver total quality experiences, regardless of platform or device.

No longer will application developers need to manage multiple sets of code across multiple platforms. And Titanium enables developers to work with application coding languages many already are experienced with. That translates to minimal learning curves, heightened levels of innovation, and faster time to market.

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of Titanium is the ability to more consistently represent the brand across digital marketing assets and multiple mobile devices. Users will still experience interfacing differences native to platforms such as the iPhone and Android, but companies will be empowered to cost effectively provide the same set of functionality and content to every user. That means we are truly nearing seamless experiences in the 360 degree delivery of digital marketing.

Read the Article | Browse More Articles like This One in Our Publications Section

| Permalink

More companies are working with outside consultants to help reveal the science behind customer behavior. It seems like just about every company is employing customer experience design and measurement services from outside experts these days to better understand the customer mindset, browsing and purchasing habits.

However, few analytics companies have fully realized the importance of studying the role integration plays in the science. And that is why EMC’s acquisition of Conchango is not only refreshing, but should give consumer product and retail companies confidence that the art behind the science is being considered and factored appropriately.

After all, multi-channel marketing is much more then segmentation, tactics, capturing metrics, and studying them to turn analytics into actionable insights. In fact, most experiences begin with one simple factor, attraction. May it be visual or messaging that connects with the customer, the science is often the result of the creative. And as more analytics companies begin to take those factors into consideration, the more their clients will win and gain true insight into their customer’s behavior and be able to pinpoint what it is that achieved that first point of attraction.

Read the Article | Browse More Articles like This One in Our Publications Section

| Permalink

Opera 5 nailed it by achieving 90% remote compression of content before transmission.

As most iPhone users know, there is nothing more frustrating than slow page loads when browsing the web on AT&T’s 3G network in low-bandwidth areas. And trying to browse apps that transmit large amounts of data is out of the question.

But Opera 5’s approach, using remote compression helps ensure Android users never have to experience those issues. By compressing content on Opera’s servers and then completing transmission to your mobile device, Opera leaves more processing power on your device free and available to run other functions critical to browser performance. The result is not only faster load times, but the elimination of lags in performance when browsing.

Combined with Android’s ability to simultaneously run multiple applications, Opera 5 users will quickly find themselves efficiently multi-tasking in ways they have only dreamed about before.

Read the Article | Browse More Articles like This One in Our Publications Section

| Permalink

Online sales are expected to reach 12 percent of the total retail market by 2012, up from 6 percent, or $211.7 billion, now, according to Forrester Research.

Not surprising and most know is just the beginning of the continued growth of online shopping.

So how can companies maximize return on investment of their own online storefronts?

By optimizing their cross-sell and up-sell opportunities – fine tuning them to increase spend per transaction.

But it requires more then just personalization and product recommendations. Companies need to be able to identify trends across customer’s previous purchase behaviour and customer segments and use predictive analytics to foresee what a customer will most likely next want to purchase.

And use the ability to control cross selling and up selling across digital marketing assets, to primarily invest in the campaigns that return the highest level of engagement and close the most selling opportunities following the customer’s visit of your online storefront.

As a result of anticipating a customer’s wants, customers perceive a brand to be the one that best understand them, a deeper more compelling connection, and superior customer loyalty.

Read the Article | Browse More Articles like This One in Our Publications Section

| Permalink

Digital advertising continues to grow as more and more customers shift to online shopping. And it’s not experimental anymore. Due to the evolution of real-time personalization and deeper customer care programs, digital media is able to transform marketing programs around a single individual.

• Paid Search is enabling advertising to get local.
• Banner Advertising is making the experience more interactive. Used as complimentary content on article pages, customers are able to become aware and knowledgeable about their products on third-party websites. The result is more completed purchases, profitability.
• Email has transformed from advertising to loyalty. Companies are able to learn from their customers and use that information to provide promotions and rewards they will most appreciate, ultimately encouraging repeat business.

It’s more then the rise of a new advertising age, it’s the rise of a target audience of one.

Read the Article | Browse More Articles like This One in Our Publications Section

| Permalink

Adequately titled “Social Commerce 101”, the article provides a great overview of how multi-channel integrated marketing can be applied to create customer experiences, specifically in the business to consumer operating environment.

What you may be left wondering after reading the article is what exactly bridges the gap between the “buzz” and the “buy”.

At face value, the article may appear to suggest that simply creating and implementing a social commerce framework will result in sales and bottom-line sales growth. But as many already know, a “build it and they will come” strategy is not a strategy at all. So then what specifically encourages user generated content, transitions it to delivering on customer’s wants, and truly results in social commerce – or in other words, sales that are driven as a result of the “buzz”?

It is the emotional drivers you create – your market positioning, your messaging and delivery. Those aspects are what typically resonates with customers and what typically motivates people to take action. For that reason, content strategy becomes a core investment to ensure your social media truly results in and drives social commerce.

Additionally, if you want to get the most return on your investment, it is wise to measure and optimize your positioning and messaging efforts to identify and focus on the exact trigger points that result in sales. For example, you may say the same thing, in the exact same way, in multiple delivery vehicles, across multiple social platforms. But it is the individual source – segmented as far down as the specific digital media asset that was served to the customer, in a specific environment – that generated the actual sale. That is your strongest bridge and where you focus on and optimize around.

Leverage your social commerce 101 lesson to begin creating customer experiences, add in compelling messaging in an engaging delivery vehicle, and in a short amount of time you will be on your way to social commerce success.

Read the Article | Browse More Articles like This One in Our Publications Section

| Permalink

Interactive components and digital media continue to morph and adapt as new technologies and technology platforms continue to flood the market. Penguin’s approach to publishing interactive books provides continued validation to the hundreds of other innovations that surface daily.

Additionally, approach, implementation, and new channel integration challenges continue to expand and as a result, many new specialty agencies have been created and existing agencies are quickly moving to expand their product and services offerings to take advantage of these new opportunities.  Each is going to market on a promise that they are different from their competitors which leaves marketers scratching their heads about what resources are required to solve each unique business challenge they embark on.

Although it seems complex to identify and choose an appropriate partner, it is actually quite simple if viewed from a big picture perspective.

Because at the core this is about more than the Internet, more  than interactive media, and more than emerging technology platforms. At the core of successful marketing is the holistic customer experience. Marketers can feel confident that along with all of the quickly developing technologies, trends, and platforms, the customer experience remains core to the overarching Internet, interactive, digital and traditional marketing strategy.

The actual challenge for marketers remains the same. Marketers must first plan for how these new opportunities fit into the existing customer experience then  identify resources that are best fit to holistically integrate and manage the solutions that provide the greatest benefit to the business – not from a technical standpoint, but from an experience standpoint. The technical challenges will then be a result of the strategic integration work, or one thread of the larger experience project. This of course is a best case scenario for marketers, because it puts the critical aspects of delivering success in the hands of the experience planners, which is of course where it should be.

By strategically planning and weighing the benefits and feasibility of embarking on uncharted ground and new technologies and working with best of breed experience experts, marketers will continue to position themselves and their businesses for the greatest levels of success and growth opportunities.

Read the Article | Browse More Articles like This One in Our Publications Section

| Permalink

Apple’s commercial featuring their suite of small business apps peaked curiosity for many business owners and operators. A grand development many businesses face at the local sales level – a streamlined ability to process credit card transactions while out in the field. It would provide the opportunity to replace archaic processing systems with a real-time solution. And it would result in cost saving for the business. What perhaps is not as obvious, is what impact would it have on the customer experience.

That’s right, credit card processing streamlines more then business processes, it streamlines customer experiences. Real-time processing allows end-to-end transactions to be completed in a few minutes, enabling purchasers to receive their goods and services faster, and as a result receive feelings of satisfaction sooner.

And faster turn-around at the point-of-purchase leads to shortened repeat purchase cycles, meaning the customer comes back for more, more frequently – another win for the business.

So as we continue to monitor the integration and transition to in-store, on the sales floor credit card processing systems, and remote credit card processing systems, we will also continue to monitor how these transactions evolve companies’ customer engagement strategies, After all, real-time processing opens the door to whole new worlds of opportunities to engage and profit, such as real-time second chance offers, and “you may also like” opportunities – delivered through the internet, in-store, in-person.

Read the Article | Browse More Articles like This One in Our Publications Section

| Permalink

I have always loved the CES – every since I was a kid, growing up during the rise of Nintendo and the DVD. And this year’s CES is an extra special one, as it confirmed the next channel of digital marketing is upon us – the Internet integrated into your television.

For the consumer, a whole new world is opening up – television supported by new interactive experiences, new ways to share with others, new ways to access and digest information, and new ways to navigate.

And for companies, a new way to engage, interact, and satisfy customers. And it enables new ways to extend existing campaigns and assets across a brand new channel.

Throw in a few of the other emerging technologies such as Internet integrated into your vehicle or Skype’s extension into wherever the Internet lives and it is easy to see that the Internet is quickly become the primary tool for people to manage everything they have going on in their lives. But more then intriguing to ponder the possibilities is the fact that those companies that embrace these channels as part of the holistic customer experience will be those that benefit and profit the most from this evolution.

Read the Article | Browse More Articles like This One in Our Publications Section

| Permalink

Direct Digital Marketing (a.k.a. Digital Marketing) gained momentum and is now an enterprise priority for many companies in the consumer goods and retail industries. In addition to the incumbent service providers available, such as Aprimo, both technology and consulting firms are organizing resources to share in the opportunity.

Some incumbent service providers offer proprietary technology platforms – packaged as software-as-a-service – and promise to provide full enterprise marketing management capability. In reality, none do.

This article speaks very simply to what must be achieved in a technology platform to address the full digital marketing challenge.

• A seamless interface that connects email, mobile, and web marketing and analytics

• Profile management system that connects end-to-end customer data with captured behavioral data when interfacing with web sites, mobile media, email, online advertisements, organic and paid search activity – and although not mentioned but required measurement of traditional media.

As more competitors, technology platforms, and specialized software-as-a-service tools surface it will be interesting to see who will best address the opportunity. It will also be interesting to see how integrated business suite software offerings such as Netsuite evolve and build on their existing product’s already impressive capabilities.

Read the Article | Browse More Articles like This One in Our Publications Section

| Permalink