Product Documents

This post originally ran on ClickZ, November 4, 2015. If the CMO is supposed to foster customer relationships through personalized experiences and ultimately drive digital transformations, should the role of CDO even exist? While the intent behind the chief digital officer (CDO) role is right, the execution is wrong. A good chief marketing officer (CMO) should be responsible for driving digital transformation—not the CDO. Therefore, marketing leaders are required to step up their game. Every now and then, you run across business ideas that experts initially laud, that later ends in tears. (Does anyone remember business process reengineering?) As the nature of our world and our interactions has become more digital than ever before, companies are adding a newly created role of CDO to their executive masthead. It seems that this year, experts and firms around the world have increasingly been talking about the rise of the CDO. In fact, research from Gartner predicted that by the end of this year, 25 percent of organizations would have hired a CDO. Among other things, the CDO is supposed to drive their companies' digital presence as well as their digital consumer experiences. This is a bad idea. Some are absolutely thrilled by that prospect and contend that the CDO really ought to be the CMO of the future, but I beg to differ. I know this is provocative but the CDO, in title and role, just should not exist: the CMO is really the new CDO of the future. CMOs and marketers need to rise to the challenge of our new digital world and take control of the transformation in their organizations. As a recent Accenture study noted, it’s up to CMOs to prove they can serve as catalysts who can help embrace broader digital opportunities for their organizations while defending against threats. Digital: the new apple pie Chief executive officers (CEOs) now operate in a vastly different marketing landscape from what they faced just a few years ago. Everything used to be offline, but within a relative blink of time, every business has become – or is in the process of becoming—focused on digital. Digital is now as ubiquitous as “apple pie” American values. Even now, you can’t watch a TV ad without having it drive some digital action. Think about the broadcast ads enticing fans to sign up for fantasy sports leagues – there’s always an offer for a code to sign up online. This is an instant way to turn an analog experience into a digital one. Sure, the code is meant to identify when the company interacted with the consumer, in addition to what city the consumer lives in and even which team they were watching, but this also allows the company to have a more personal and relevant discussion with its audience. Brilliantly, this also makes large marketing investments—TV ads—directly measurable for the first time. So who can blame the CEO for feeling compelled to hire a CDO to help define a digital business strategy to make sense of it all? Like data, quality, collaboration, or people; digital is more than a universal good, it is a universal imperative. It is simply just that important. The wrong tool for the job The world of digital has changed forever how we think about brand engagement with customers, and engaging with customers at different digital interaction points is considered a good and necessary idea. There’s now an onus on companies to maintain an ongoing dialogue with customers on a personal and individual level, engaging with them over a lifetime. CEOs are aware of the imperative, and they’re clearly trying to solve the problem. Digital is core to every facet of customer interactions and relationships. Likewise, customers are the center of every business—without them, the business doesn’t exist. So, it would seem to follow that the champion for making a business digital should be an executive who has operational responsibility—and familiarity—with customer related processes and interaction points, right? But the superfluous addition of another executive function—one that, by definition, is distant from the customer relationship and doesn’t directly control the interaction points—is just not a good idea. This conversation must be directed by the CMO. If not, the result is just one more voice at the table that is disconnected from all of these places. As one expert at a leading analyst firm said to me, “It’s just a title that lacks definitional integrity." What isn’t digital? It’s like having a chief collaboration officer, a chief PowerPoint officer, or even a chief breathing officer—why put someone in charge of something that everything must own? Don’t get me wrong—I have many friends that carry the title of chief digital officer. They are smart, bright, talented people. However, the fact is that the CDO is fated to fade away. Even industry pundits readily state that success for a chief digital officer will be the fact that the title goes away or that their role is no longer needed. If we can see that end-state now, shouldn’t we all save ourselves the trouble, skip that step, and put the responsibility where it belongs? Calling all CMOs Sadly, CEOs feel that they can’t turn to CMOs for the solution. When Accenture asked C-Suite executives about who was responsible for driving their company’s digital strategy, only one percent answered that it was the CMO. That is a failure in the job function and a failure on our part as marketers. We’re at a pivotal point where marketers must grab the mantle of responsibility. A good CMO should be responsible for driving digital transformation—period. This is no longer one of things that CMO has to do: it is the thing that the CMO should do. So marketers—grab the brass ring! Go get smart, build your skills, build your org, assemble your technology, and take more responsibility. CEOs want marketers to own the entire customer relationship. In turn, you’ll be doing the right thing both for your career and your organizations.

Author: Elaine Ip Halloween has come and gone, but the fright isn’t over just yet. With its passing grows a sense of panic among consumer marketers everywhere. We are now in the busiest selling season of the year, with advertisements hitting consumers left to right. From those eagerly anticipated holiday sales to Black Friday or Cyber Monday, consumers are receiving floods of communication every day. What will make your message stand out from the masses? Determining how to nurture your customers is a good start, but for your message to really catch their eye, you need to have compelling content. Follow these 4 guidelines to create content that resonates with your customers: 1. Trust is a Must Without any personal affiliations with your customer, your words (in this case, your content) are what they hold you to. And nothing speaks louder than words than your actions. Make sure that your marketing strategy and activities deliver on what you promise. If you offer them a coupon, fulfill it. If your customer asks to be unsubscribed from your mailing list, remove them. If you don’t, not only will it hurt your credibility, but you’ll start to see less engagement and, ultimately, less conversions. 2. Identify Your John and Jane Doe Understand who your target audience is so you can tailor your content to be relevant, interesting, and timed specifically for them. In this new digital age, customers share their information with you and in turn expect you to use it wisely. Use the data you’ve collected to properly segment and target your audience in order to build trust and relevance. Given the upcoming holidays and my affinity for buying beauty products, Sephora has nailed this down–targeting their audience *raises hand* with the right content. On the flip side, I’ve been receiving emails lately with the subject line: Senior Apartment Listings in Your Area. Since it’s outside my demographic, you can probably imagine how annoying these have been. Impersonal and poorly timed messages make your customers question whether you even know who they are or understand them. Relevant customer nurturing is all about timing and the ability to demonstrate that you understand your customer. 3. Be in the Right Place Consumers shift across channels throughout the day. Fine-tune your customer nurturing strategy for multi-channel engagement. Remember to be mindful of the content you put out on each channel to ensure that your customer experience is optimized and personal. Customers expect their experience to be a seamless, continuous conversation across channels and it’s your job to ensure this happens. In the example below, you can see the shoe retailer Sole Society advertises their Cammila loafer to a select audience on Instagram. Then later on Facebook, their ad targeting offers me the same shoe in a different pattern. Instead, I clicked on a Business Insider article and Sole Society was there once more via another advertisement to continue the conversation with me–finally convincing me to click through to shop. One of my favorite (and most dangerous) pastimes is online shopping. There’s nothing better than having access to a plethora of inventory at just the click of a mouse. Once in a while, even if I’ve already decided to buy an item, something comes up that distracts me and I won’t follow through and check out. With multi-channel marketing, I’ll receive an email a few days later reminding me about my abandoned item. “Still thinking this over? You have some great stuff in your Shopping Bag.” Thank you Nordstrom, I think so too! Time to check out! 4. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is Justify your marketing spend. Your customer nurturing program needs to be measurable so that you can consistently track your progress and look for ways to improve it. Define the right set of metrics, review and adjust your nurture tracks along the way, and finally report your success. Since email is a large part of most customer nurturing programs, here are the 7 most common email metrics that you may want to track: Sent – emails that actually moved through your engagement marketing platform Delivered – emails that were sent and not rejected by a receiving server Bounced – messages that were permanently rejected (hard bounce) and messages that were temporarily rejected (soft bounce) Opened – recipients who opened (viewed) the email Clicked – subscribers who clicked on a link, button, or image within your message Unsubscribed – contacts who clicked the “unsubscribe” link in an email and then followed through to successfully opt out Marked as Spam – subscribers who reported your email as spam Take a step back and test your content on yourself. If you had received this from another company, how would you respond? Does it tell a continuous story? Would you open it and click through? Or would you unsubscribe or mark it as spam? Let’s not be biased here. By checking your content for these measures, you can ensure that your nurture campaigns aren’t going to waste. With customer nurturing, you can build effective relationships with consumers throughout their buying journey. Embrace these best practices and watch your customers move along the purchase cycle! For a comprehensive description of customer nurturing best practices, check out our Definitive Guide to Customer Nurturing. Have you seen an example of excellent customer nurturing in action? Or do you have tips to add? Please share them in the comments section below.

Here is another of our great interviews from Marketo’s “Ask the CMO: Lessons Learned” series with Mashable. This week, Mashable sat down with David Roman, CMO of Lenovo. I loved reading this one because he hits on one of the biggest themes in marketing: change. Over the past few years, I’ve discussed this theme repeatedly on stage at events around the world; marketing has changed more in the last five years than it has in the last 500, and will change even more in the next five years. From its standing as a large, global organization, Lenovo is driving an incredible change in its brand and presence in market—but this topic is relevant regardless of a marketer’s company size or industry. All of us are trying to keep up with and drive change in all aspects of our craft, be it in the way we measure success, the way we reach new audiences, or in the way we carve a role for ourselves within the greater company. David speaks to all of these interesting change factors, including another one that has been near and dear to me for some time: marketing is fundamentally changing from “broadcasting” at an audience to engaging with them. Amen, right? I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I did and that it inspires you to drive change. The following interview originally appeared on Mashable. Chinese PC purveyor Lenovo isn't just in the PC business these days, nor is it perceived as exclusively a Chinese brand. Over the past few years, Lenovo has expanded not only its product offerings (including the much-hyped Magic Watch with projection capabilities), but also its global presence. Several key purchases along the way—including 2005's IBM PC buy, and 2014's Motorola acquisition—have helped cement Lenovo as a key global tech player. Now, number three in smartphones in addition to the world's leading maker of PCs, Lenovo has modernized its image to match its diverse offerings and reach. Via a 2015 rebrand spearheaded by CMO David Roman, Lenovo's logo was retooled, and a new palette of colors was introduced. This is just one of the many tactics Roman, who joined the team in 2010, has employed to craft the company's image and help the brand grow and redefine itself in the process. Roman took the time to chat with Mashable, delving into the marketing strategies that fuel Lenovo. We started with a look back at Roman's advice to his younger self, and the unexpected past experiences he deems vital to his success. Q&A with Lenovo's CMO, David Roman 1. If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self that pertains to your career in marketing, what would it be? I would tell myself to focus on simplicity in marketing and relentlessly stick with it. The minute you stray from it, get confused or start to doubt yourself, your message gets cloudy and you move further away from the most important part of what you're trying to market. 2. What's the most unexpectedly important skill from your past that you've found plays into your success? In Economics 101, we learned the principle of Ceteris Paribus, meaning "all else being equal." When looking at the effects of "laws" of economics, we make an assumption that all other variables will stay constant. In actual fact, they don't stay constant, but it helps us understand the variables we are studying. The lesson is that, when we want to do something truly disruptive and "game-changing," it's good to look at how we can change some of the variables that we would normally assume to be constant when we want to do something truly disruptive and "game-changing," it's good to look at how we can change some of the variables that we would normally assume to be constant. That taught me a different methodology to look for opportunities for what's going to change and be disruptive. 3. What are the three biggest trends that you see in tech marketing today? In the past, marketers broadcast to their audiences. Today, marketers engage with them, largely online. In both models, you have to know your audience—the people you really want to reach. The difference is control. In the traditional model, you craft the message and very carefully control how it reaches your target audience. Today, we give up that control and co-create our message with our best customers and let them help us tell the story. While engagement takes many shapes, we're focused on three: crowdsourcing, influencer partnerships and user-generated content. Crowdsourcing: Crowdsourcing is now a legitimate way to develop compelling creative. That wasn't the case several years ago, but now professionals are flocking to crowdsourcing platforms and communities, helping brands deliver unique programs in near real-time. Influencer partnerships: YouTube now outranks traditional TV programming for millennials seeking entertainment. This surge in popularity has created YouTube stars who are remarkably different from celebrity entertainers. These online legends have cultivated large, loyal fanbases who engage regularly with the hosts, giving feedback and ideas and participating in programming in a new way. We've worked with YouTuber Ryan Higa to integrate him and his show in an authentic way around our ihackedlife campaign, where we show users tips, tricks and hacks that make life easier — both with our devices and more generally. User-generated content: Technology and social media have changed the way we engage with consumers. Content is participatory, and users now drive campaigns with content they generate. A good example of this is our recent Hack the Logo campaign. After redesigning our logo, we invited fans to insert their best representations (photos and videos) of our brand attitude: never stand still. We got phenomenal results, and we showcased our fans' work at our booth at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin. 4. How do your dual headquarters (in the U.S. and China) affect how your marketing department is organized? What's changed in your time at Lenovo? Our company structure is a competitive advantage and allows us to create a global marketing framework that is flexible enough for regional teams to adapt to local tastes and preferences. While we have dual headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina and Beijing, China, we truly are a global marketing organization with no geographic or time boundaries. We have a core part of our team in Raleigh with others all over the world. We work closely with other marketers from our regions (North America, Europe/Middle East and Africa, Latin America and Asia Pacific) as well as marketers from our three business groups. As we continue to grow, it becomes harder to coordinate across all functions, so we're establishing some centralized processes that will help us manage complexity and efficiency. 5. Lenovo used to be perceived as strictly a Chinese brand — how have you reshaped and redefined your image using marketing? How has data informed and tailored your strategy and brand story to different countries/regions? We have always viewed ourselves as a global brand since acquiring IBM's former PC business in 2005. Looking back 10 years later, we've made tremendous progress. We've launched our consumer business around the world. We've expanded beyond PCs—now Lenovo and Moto smartphones and servers—so more people are able to buy our products in more places. That's half the solution. We've had to transform from a solely business-to-business company to become both a B2B and a consumer brand. And along the way, we've integrated a number of mergers and acquisitions, bringing brands like Medion and NEC under the Lenovo fold. We've done this by defining the core of the Lenovo brand and appealing to the values that drive our customers. Simply put, our products help you get more done and make life more interesting—from our convertibles that flip and fold to our servers that store and process business critical data. Like us, our customers never stand still. They are constantly finding better, faster ways to do things. We think this fits extremely well with our DNA and engineers who relentlessly tinker to make each device incrementally better. We've used data extensively to better understand our customers. We used our brand tracker across 33 countries and 32,000 participants to track our growth in awareness and consideration across markets where we see strong correlation of increased investment in the brand with higher market share growth. Additionally, we embarked on a broad consumer segmentation study across eight countries with 24,000 participants to more deeply understand our target audience. We also created a social health index for analyzing our fans' engagement and sentiment on global social platforms. 6. How do you measure ROI? How has that changed over the last five years? When we think about ROI models, we break them into two types: short and long-term. Short-term ROI typically involves generating sales by acquiring leads, closing business, increasing margin, etc. This is pretty easy to calculate as the "return" happens shortly after the "investment." Long-term, strategic marketing used to build the brand or position a new category is more complex. Just look at our YOGA convertible. Totally different from other PCs on the shelf, we knew launching YOGA would be a strategic move that would help us define a new category and build a premium position. But, it may take much longer to get the return and we need a more complex and broader ROI model. While access to the many data points we have today helps us measure ROI, we must be careful not to constrain our actions by metrics that are too simplistic. The temptation may be to focus only on what we can measure easily and lose the balance between short and long-term investments. Either way, as marketing professionals it is key for us to determine the metrics used to measure the results of our proposed activities as part of our proposals. 7. In the PC world, brand loyalty is a strong factor, especially at the enterprise level where Lenovo is competing for big corporate accounts. How does Lenovo A) Keep longtime customers faithful, B) Convince new customers to make the jump to Lenovo products and C) Maintain a level of engagement after purchase? We have a successful track record for business customers in PCs because we listen to them and deliver high-quality products carefully designed to meet their needs. We spend a lot of time getting customer feedback through our customer advisory councils, and it's an iterative process as we're constantly fine-tuning a product for its successor. When we came out with the YOGA convertible, business customers told us they wanted a YOGA for business, so we created the ThinkPad YOGA, which borrows a lot of the same thinking of the consumer YOGA but with business-class features. In addition to industry-leading ratings for reliability, we provide a full array of service and support for commercial customers. We've continued to demonstrate better ROI over our competitors when it comes to total cost of ownership, from purchase to maintenance to disposal. 8. Over the last few years, Lenovo has really expanded its focus beyond PCs — to tablets, phones, even data centers and CIOs. How are you using marketing to build relationships outside of your sweet spot, and what's your biggest area for potential growth? We have a three-pronged strategy for balanced growth: PCs, smartphones and enterprise servers. PCs and smartphones are huge volume plays, and servers are highly profitable. In many countries like China, Russia, India and Brazil, smartphones are now driving the brand more than PCs, so we are prioritizing marketing investments in that business. Enterprise customers are different from consumers and our marketing reflects that. We use experiential tactics like events, workshops and tours to educate customers about those products. 9. Speaking of new relationships, let's talk influencers, like the NFL, Conan, Ashton Kutcher and more. Are these reflective of a bigger push into the B2C space? How do these activities benefit your enterprise business? At a global level, we like to engage with strategic partners like Ashton Kutcher where we are able to have a deep relationship. Ashton has been involved in all aspects of our products. He has created one of our most interesting products, the YOGA Tablet 2 Pro, a multimode tablet with a built-in projector, and he's been involved in marketing and promoting it. Using our global-local framework, our regions and countries have the flexibility to engage with spokespeople that make sense for their business. For example, the U.S. team has a partnership with the NFL, which helps engage with consumers as well as enterprise customers. 10. Change has been a common theme throughout this interview. To also end on this note, can you tell us a bit about Lenovo's new logo and color palette? What parts of the marketing department played a role in the change and did marketing insights play a part in instigating the change? Our new logo, and in fact our entire brand identity system, came directly out of a core customer insight: The world we all live in simply never stands still. It moves at an incredible pace, and every day it seems to pick up speed. Obstacles come at us from every direction and it's everything we can do to bob and weave to avoid them. Yet somehow, we each keep moving forward and making progress every day. As we move through this world, we actively seek out brands that seem to '"get" it. Brands that understand the dynamic nature of the world and are committed to helping us navigate it more effectively. The new Lenovo identity is designed very specifically to deliver on this never-stand-still philosophy. It's the reason we designed a logo with a containing shape. We wanted our logo to be able to constantly evolve, and to provide a dynamic window into the world in which it lives. The container is designed to hold an endless array of content—from colors to pictures to animations to film. So the logo on Lenovo.com in India during Divali will be very different from the logo on a social site in the UK during the World Cup. We've released the logo to our 60,000+ employees, and many of them are designing personal logos that give an insight into their specific world. And we're working with fans and artists to develop a very cool series of user-generated logos. Our color palette is simply an extension of this philosophy. Our former palette consisted of red, black and a few grays. Our new palette reflects the dynamic, colorful world that people live in, bringing in blue, green, orange and pink. This new identity development was lead by the Worldwide Marketing team. However, we shared its development early and often through a series of town halls with a broad range of Lenovo employees. In fact (and not surprisingly) some of our most insightful feedback came from a town hall with over 50 of our millennial employees.

Today, we’re continuing our inspiring “Ask the CMO” series with Mashable with the following Q&A with Lara Hood Balazs, SVP, head of North America marketing at Visa. I remember the first time I met Lara; I was inspired because she was not only talking about some of the same organization and structure challenges that were most on my mind, but she was actually doing something about them. As a result, Lara was a central thought leader in the piece we did with HBR on the org of the future. Not surprisingly, in this interview she provides some interesting insights about not only how we market in this new digital era, but what teams and marketers must look like to be successful. I particularly loved her Swiss army knife reference, which you’ll find below. In addition to the organization commentary, the other theme that I loved has to do with Lara’s thoughts on innovation. Innovation is critical not just for marketers in this fast-paced world, but for companies themselves. When you think of a company like Visa that is so successful and has existed for decades, you could be forgiven for thinking that they were comfortable and slow to change.  But, reading below, you realize that Visa isn’t standing still – they’re moving as fast, if not faster than everyone else in their space. Think about it; you can’t watch TV these days without seeing ads and news about new payment options and brands. In a static world, a company like Visa could find themselves being unseated by new technology. Instead – and I love this comment – Lara points out that Visa is, at its core, a technology company. As a result it is looking to disrupt some of its own models and drive its own innovation in order to stay ahead of the curve (Read below to hear some of Lara’s hints about their first direct to consumer product). We’re certainly living in exciting times! The following interview originally appeared on Mashable. The credit card and payment space is in flux. Consumers want the newest technology and the most efficient shopping experience, merchants seek more seamless checkouts and both parties demand increased data security. It's in this frenzied state that Visa is innovating like never before, reminding us that first and foremost, it's a technology company. What consumer insights do Visa's game-changing payment solutions, like Visa Checkout and Apple and Android Pay with Visa, come from? We spoke with Lara Hood Balazs, SVP, head of North America marketing at Visa, and asked her how the company remains a technology company, what it does to prepare for shopping monsoons like Black Friday and how it keeps its heritage taglines fresh and relevant. Q&A With Visa's SVP of North American Marketing, Lara Hood 1. If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self that pertains to your career in marketing, what would it be? I would tell the younger Lara to not be afraid to take risks. When you are starting off in your career, you can have a tendency to be cautious because you think failures may affect your ability to advance. I've learned that taking risks allows you to learn and, therefore, become more knowledgeable in your craft. In fact, it is the risks I've taken that have contributed to my career progression. 2. What's the most unexpectedly important skill from your past that plays into your successes? I graduated from my undergraduate program into a recession. I was Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude, but I had a hard time finding a job! I knew I wanted to go into marketing, so I offered my time free of charge to Seattle’s iconic Pike Place Market, which was suffering from a decline in tourist visits. I delivered a program to drive local consumer visits. This gave me experience to get a "real" marketing job in a down economy. I learned that resilience, tenacity, passion and drive can never be underestimated. Today, I look for those traits in the people I hire. 3. What are the three biggest trends that you see in financial services marketing today? Innovation, innovation, innovation. The world of payments has never been more dynamic. Companies that you never thought would live in the world of payments are in the middle of some of the major changes in how people pay today and will pay tomorrow. If brands like Visa or startups like Venmo don't constantly innovate, they'll quickly be left behind. 4. Before joining Visa, you worked for two clothing/apparel companies. What experiences and lessons from those industries did you bring to Visa? Visa is one of the best co-marketers in the world with partners and merchants. Having worked for a retail-driven businesses, I know what a retailer goes through and I have a deeper understanding of their world, needs and worries. It helps shape how I approach their business when partnering on any marketing campaign or activation. For example, we are in the midst of the holiday season, which is the peak season for both retailers and payments, so there are a lot of synergies. 5. Coming from those areas, financial services is a highly regulated industry. How do you challenge your marketing teams to create innovative campaigns while balancing the regulatory environment? Visa at its core is a technology company. We're innovative while we maniacally focus on offering our clients and consumers acceptance, convenience, ease and security. It is an "and" not an "or." 6. During the past year as SVP, head of North America marketing at Visa, you've shifted your marketing organization's structure to be more horizontal and project-based. Given the evolving skills needed to be successful in marketing, how do you approach attracting and retaining the right talent for this model? We are constantly looking for talent that we refer to as "human Swiss army knives." We look for people who thrive in the "grey" and can easily move between multiple work projects. These individuals tend to be the best team players and they get more job satisfaction because they become more exposed to different parts of the organization. This gives employees opportunities to build a larger skill set base. 7. To that end, how do you determine the most effective mix of advertising across all channels? In which channel are you seeing the greatest growth? When we work with our merchant partners, we are looking for the right campaign for the right audience on the right platform. We've committed over half of our media investment to social and digital these days. We still, however, see value in appointment television—specifically as it relates to sports. Our partnership with the NFL and Olympics provide a great audience for our brand and clients, both issuers and merchants. There are so many ways to reach consumers these days. We are always looking for the optimal way. For example, we recently produced a campaign for Chevron where they wanted to help educate consumers on how to use their mobile phone in order to pay at the pump. We created an entertaining and educational video with soccer star Carli Lloyd and put it out over social channels and on video screens on top of pumps at select stations. It was a great way to engage with their consumers in a meaningful way. 8. As you mentioned, Visa is a major player in the world of event sponsorships. How do you measure success and ROI from these activities? When it comes to events and sponsorships, it's all about standing up our brand, products and partners. As proud sponsors of the Olympics and the NFL, we have a global stage in the coming year in which to activate along with our issuers, merchants and partners. In fact, next year's Super Bowl 50 (already a landmark event given the tenure) is right in our backyard and in the heart of the tech sector. 9. Last year, Visa brought back (and expanded) the tagline "Everywhere you want to be." It's a long-running campaign. How does Visa keep it current across all channels, particularly mobile? "Everywhere you want to be" is more than a tagline for us; it's a mission statement. With Visa as a partner, merchants will be able to find your customers in the moment and at the moment. They will be able to grow their business and they won't have to even think about it. We use that lens with our campaigns the same way we approach any part of our business. 10. The holidays and Black Friday are upon us—and they're both important hallmarks of the payments technology industry. Describe the process for shaping your holiday marketing strategy. How will this year differ from 2014? We are in our sophomore year with our first direct-to-consumer product, Visa Checkout. Last year we had just gone to market, so this year we have new partners, returning merchants, more data and some interesting announcements in the queue that I can't reveal today. Some of the merchants we have recently signed up include Under Armour, Shutterfly, Taco Bell and United Airlines. Look for more as we get deeper into the season. 11. Busy shopping seasons and the holidays are also full of moments, which marketers love to seize. What key moments will Visa define and leverage this winter? How does Visa Checkout play into your approach? Our hero product for the holidays is Visa Checkout, whether on the desktop or via your mobile phone. We provide the security and simplicity that Visa has always stood for and consumers have grown to expect. Cyber Monday is still expected to be the biggest online shopping day, so expect us to leverage that moment. And we may have something up our sleeves for last minute shoppers! Stay tuned.

By: Crystal Vaughan Posted: December 15, 2015 | Modern Marketing If building a customer community for an organization were like planning a wedding and inviting guests, customer communities often are the second cousin who’s invited only when slots open up on the attendee list. But take it from me (I’m in the middle of planning my own wedding), they really should be a guest of honor. The Importance of Building a Customer Community Many companies see communities as a ‘nice-to-have’ and not as critical to the organization as sales and marketing, but the reality is that a customer community is a critical direct line to your customers and has the power to build your brand with your most powerful advocates. 2016 is the age of the customer, as the market moves at a speed not yet seen before, driven by customers’ high expectations for personalization of their journey. Businesses will need to realign and reorient their strategy specifically around the customer or risk losing out on developing and fostering a valuable channel as customers form communities of their own. During the last few months, I’ve researched and planned for the 2016 execution of an online community for Invoca. At the same time, I’ve also been planning a wedding and actively applying the lessons I’ve learned along the way to help lay a successful foundation upon which I’ll build Invoca’s community. Below, I share my advice on the three most important things I’ve learned from wedding planning that’s helped me assemble an online community proposal: 1. Get Executive Buy-In Early On While the tradition of asking the bride’s father’s permission before proposing is somewhat outdated and not as frequently used anymore, asking permission and getting buy-in is still a vital part of a community-building process. Getting internal buy-in and support is a rule of thumb within organizations as they build large initiatives. But, like a nervous fiancé about to ask permission, I bet you’re wondering: what’s the best way to set yourself up for success when you ask? Start by doing your research. Then create a project plan and define methods to measure your results—think about what success looks like for this initiative and ask yourself the hard questions you’ll likely get. Then present your plan to an executive sponsor. Their buy-in as you build an online community will help support your goals and guide you with your project plan, ensuring you stay in alignment with the overall business objectives. It will also assist with defining exactly what is being built and the importance of the initiative to the rest of the organization. 2. Customer Experience Matters Just like you have to understand your wedding guests and gauge their interest in the different elements of your wedding (did someone say photobooth?), you’ve got to gauge the level of interest your current customers would have in an online community. This may not be the main channel they are interested in actively participating on–perhaps they interact more with your brand on your blog or want instant support via chat or a Twitter account. But can you incorporate these elements into your community so they can get everything in one place? Getting consensus on what your customers want before throwing money into developing an online community should be part of your research. You want to establish a channel that supports development of the customer and helps them get value out of their current investment, while also ensuring you see a return from your investment. Establishing this type of customer experience broadcasts that you are listening to what they want and creates a strong foundation for your first interactions with them. So set up a primary channel to communicate with them and nail it. 3. You Need a Team to Bring It to Life When you’re planning a wedding, you’re either one of two brides: a bride that thinks in siloes or a bride that thinks all-encompassing. Those that think in siloes are the equivalent of marketers who have “tool bloat”, needing a decorator for wedding decor, florist for floral arrangements, and caterer for wedding menu. However, in my experience, I’ve found if you bind everything together, it’s a great way to indirectly support the main initiative. For instance, find a venue that incorporates catering, décor, lighting, floral, all in one complete package, and you’ll have an entire team working toward one main goal instead of trying to coordinate between all of them. The same goes for building an online community. Many think online communities are strictly for customer marketing, upsells and advocacy, and as such, marketing-owned. But it is much more than that–they allow for instant, unlimited communication and unparalleled networking, giving customers a chance to build stronger relationships with each other and the business. If your community is going to be a success, it needs to be rebranded internally, adopted widely and owned company-wide. Sales, marketing, customer success, product development and even finance need to work together in order for the business to have a successful community. By putting together a cross-functional team of champions, each person will be able to promote and indirectly support the online community. Aligning the goals of the community with the goals of all your organizational stakeholders is vital. When companies align the community goal across all departments, employees know to make decisions that put the customer first and are more likely to contribute to the world-class customer experience you are trying to build. Ready, Set, Plan The online customer community is often a neglected opportunity. Businesses that incorporate the launch of customer communities in their plans and immediately hire customer community managers know community is a strong driver of business value and revenue. When community is seen as an actual product of the business, organizations will invest in it because they understand that building engaged communities will keep their customers happy, which results in lower churn. Businesses that don’t incorporate communities into their plan will need to play catch up quickly in order to remain competitive in a customer dominated world. In 2016, my prediction will be that organizations will begin to reinvent themselves to focus on the value of loyal relationships and critical real-time customer engagement over resolutions and transactions. I want to invite you to join me as I traverse through the world of the online customer community (sorry, unfortunately, my wedding guest list is already at full capacity!) If you haven’t already, consider building one out yourself. It’s a great time to be a community manager! And if you’re already on top of it, leave me some feedback below on how you have built out your own community, what tips and tricks you can offer, or any other comments you may have!

By: Sarah Quinn Posted: December 17, 2015 | Content Marketing Do you spend a lot of time crafting the perfect piece of content, only to find that it barely generates any shares, let alone drive leads? As a fellow content marketer at a B2B company, this is hands down one of the most challenging things about my job. We know that content marketing can generate more leads, but according to Content Marketing Institute, only 30% of marketers consider themselves to be effective. What’s the missing link? It’s time to go back to the basics. The problem may be in your promotion strategy or your lack thereof. Unless you have an audience that seeks out your content en masse, promoting your content is the only way that your audience is going to see it. But aside from simply posting it across your social media channels, what else can you do? Let’s take a look at 10 tactics that are essential to expanding the reach of your content: 1. Get an outsider’s buy-in Before you publish your content, you may want to think about ways that you can make it even more shareable. One of the best ways to do this is to find influencers, bloggers, and other sources within your industry and ask them for a quick interview surrounding the subject of your content. That way, you can sprinkle quotes from them throughout your content and its promotion, which will not only give it more validation, but will likely lead to your influencer sharing that piece of content with their own followers. How to find sources to interview: You’ve probably heard of great platforms such as BuzzSumo or BuzzStream, where you can search for influencers within your industry, but have you ever thought about using HARO? Help A Reporter Out (HARO) has more than 475,000 sources and 35,000 journalists that you can use to ask questions surrounding your content. You’ll be able to collect various quotes from relevant sources to give your content more value, thus making it more impactful and shareable. 2. Use the Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS) formula on social media Have you heard of the PAS formula? It stands for Problem-Agitate-Solve and it’s the copywriter’s secret weapon. PAS is a common technique that’s used when creating content, but it can also work to encourage more clicks back to your content when you post on social networks. To see this in action, imagine you’re writing a blog post. You would begin the post by identifying the reader’s problem, you would then agitate that problem, and then finish the article by providing the solution. How to use PAS on social: Let’s say your video teaches a person how to cook healthy pancakes. Using the PAS technique, your social snippet could be: “Love food but not the weight gain? It’s a daily struggle for everyone! Learn how to make yummy, guilt-free pancakes with this video.” And that’s the PAS technique working in less than 140 characters (for all you Twitter enthusiasts). Take a look at a post from Innocent Drinks—a healthy beverage company—for the perfect example. They’ve started their tweet by identifying the problem: that we don’t consume the Government recommended 5 fruits and vegetables per day. They go on to address the fact that people find it difficult to eat that much fruit and vegetables, and then they offer a solution to that problem at the end of the tweet by linking to their drinks. 3. Create social banners Do you change your social banners to promote your content? While it’s a tried and true tactic, not that many businesses will change the covers on their social pages to promote content. But it makes an impact because it’s the first thing that your audience will look at when they visit your page. Create an engaging image and include the address within the image so that your audience knows where to find the content. How to create a social banner: Take advantage of free resources to design the banners yourself like: Canva, GIM, Inkscape, and Pixlr. Social banners work best if you’re promoting big pieces of content like an ebook that’s designed to drive leads. In the example below, Wyzowl created a social banner for their Facebook page to promote their ebook. 4. Post in content communities A community that is dedicated to the type of content you’ve created is perfect place for promotion. You should be able to find various communities within your industry where you can post your content where it will offer value and not appear too “salesy”. If you are just getting started, check these places out: Visual.ly for infographics, YouTube/Vimeo for videos, Publi.shfor ebooks, and Medium for blogs. 5. Pin it to your Twitter feed Did you know that you can pin a tweet so that it appears at the top of your page? Similar to your social banners, this simple trick will help draw attention to people that visit your Twitter page because it’ll be the first tweet they see. You can remove it or change it whenever you like, and it’s perfect for promoting any type of content, including blogs, videos, infographics, or ebooks. How to pin a tweet: Find the tweet that you want to Pin, right click on the ‘more options’ icon (the three little dots under a tweet) and select to ‘Pin to your profile page’ and it will then appear at the top of your page. Take Moz for example. They’re promoting an upcoming event so they created a banner for it and pinned it to the top of their feed—highlighting its importance and driving registrations. 6. Mix up your snippets When it comes to promoting your content you shouldn’t just publish it just once on social media and hope for the best. To effectively promote your content, you need to put effort into testing out what works best for each of your different channels. By creating a variety of intriguing snippets, you’ll encourage a larger click-through to your content by delivering copy that appeals to a larger audience. How to mix up your snippets: Include a popular quote or saying Include an interesting statistic Include an engaging image Test out hashtags to increase the reach of your content 7. Include sources when sharing If you’ve cited sources in your content, then they are definitely worth mentioning when you post on social networks. The idea is that by crediting them on social media, you will encourage these sources to check out the content and share it with their followers. As you research for your content, keep track of bloggers and influencers within your industry. How to get sources to share your content: Including influencers that are active on social media, and crediting them on social can translate into a more widely shared piece of content. Take this tweet below as the perfect example. It doesn’t give too much away about the content, but simply tags a few sources within the tweet. 8. Reach out to people who have shared similar content This one isn’t exclusive to influencers, but rather peers who may help share your content for you. If you find people that have shared content around a similar topic as yours, the chances are they wouldn’t mind sharing yours as well since most people are actively looking for content to share. One of the best ways to cultivate these relationships is by reciprocally sharing and commenting. Another way is to understand their audience and make sure that your content offers value to them. You can be direct, and send them a message sharing your content with them and ask them if they would mind sharing. Or, you can follow them and slowly build a reciprocal relationship by sharing and engaging with their content and getting to know their audience before you ask for them to share—this often works best. How to find people that have shared similar content: Visit a website like BuzzSumo—a social media influencer insights platform— and type in the keywords surrounding the content that you’ve created. You’ll then find a list of articles that will be relevant to that content. Next, post the links of those articles into your search bar on Twitter and you’ll find a stream of people who have shared that very content. 9. Link from your best performing content As a metrics-driven marketer, you understand what your most successful content is. This underused tactic leverages your best performing content and its significant traffic, to promote new and related content. After you identify your best performing content, place a link from that content to the new piece that you want to promote. If you have a content recommendation engine, you may be able to automate this process. How to effectively link from your best performing content: One way to implement this is to use relevant keywords or phrases from your best performing posts, and create new content that is relevant to those keywords so that you can link to it. By doing this, the link will feel natural and relevant to your audience, rather than promotional and out of place. 10. Include a Call-to-Action (CTA) in your best performing content Chances are that your best performing content is effective at engaging your audience. Take advantage of their interest and include a CTA for them to act on. Let’s say the content that you want to promote is an educational, downloadable piece designed to generate leads. With this tip, once again you use the power of your best performing content to help drive traffic and attention to the new content you want to promote by including a call-to-action. How to include a CTA in your best performing content: The first step is to set up a landing page for the content that you want to promote so that when you include a CTA in your best performing content it points to the new asset. According to Brian Dean from Backlinko, this technique really works and he suggests using the CTA closer to the top of the content to help encourage more clicks. You can also design stand-out banners for the side bar and at the bottom of the post to really draw attention to your new content. Content marketing can be a tough gig—from content ideation to creation and promotion—but with the right tactics across various platforms, you’re far more likely to increase the chance of prospects seeing it, sharing it, and becoming your latest lead. Do you have any more tricks to promote your content? Let me know in the comments below.

You can find a video here: How Marketo Structures Marketing Operations – Marketo.com

This interview is part of Marketo’s “Ask the CMO: Marketing for Growth” series, which explores how marketing is helping to drive business at high-growth companies. In this session, we'll look at an interview with Suneet Bhatt, the CMO at LiveIntent. LiveIntent At A Glance Year Founded: 2009 Size of Marketing Team: 15 Marketing Stack Components: Social Listening/Automation, Sales Communication Platform, Sales Automation, Marketing Automation, CRM, Publishing Platform, Analytics Number One Reason for Choosing Marketing Automation: To keep up with the demands of salesforce automation and an increasingly hyper-efficient salesforce. Q&A 1. You’ve held marketing positions at a number of companies in various stages of growth. How has your marketing strategy at LiveIntent differed from your strategies at other start-ups or even well-established companies? I’m obviously smarter today because of the mistakes and opportunities I’ve made in the past. So, the biggest difference is another few years of knowledge and experience as well as greater clarity personally and professionally on the person I want to be. But high-level philosophy aside, the model and framework I’ve brought with me to LiveIntent is similar to what I’ve used to build marketing teams in the past. The core principles are exactly the same: Marketing is a servant function to the rest of the organization. Everything we do should be in support of an internal stakeholder’s goals and should push them one step closer to their stakeholders (internally or externally.) Practically, that means helping executives tell thought leadership stories, helping People Development communicate with candidates, as well as helping sales people throughout the sales cycle and into customer advocacy. Marketing is a servant function to the customer experience. Everything that Marketing does should impact some aspect of the customer experience. Whether that means: improving and automating reporting so Account teams can spend less time looking for information and more time serving clients, or helping our SDR team identify tools and use templates that improve their productivity, or helping our Sales team get closer to the point of sale with more qualified leads and better content to facilitate outreach. There’s always more work to be done than you have people to do it. The single best thing a manager can do is to identify what needs to be done at the highest-level (including soliciting feedback from all levels of the organization) and marry that to the skills you have around you. When you have gaps between the two, you also have your hiring plan. Sure, some people will have to take on some aspects of work that no one wants to do but needs to be done, but it’s rare that people are doing such things for too long. And when empowered to do it their way, they will tend to like it. The biggest difference for me at LiveIntent is that I walked into a highly functioning team of incredibly committed people. My biggest responsibility was simply to not screw it up, while helping the team think bigger about their roles. 2. One of the biggest problems that high-growth organizations face is the ability to scale. Within marketing, how have you kept your customer interactions effective and personal as LiveIntent has expanded? The first thing we did was structure and hire to ensure the entire customer experience is supported. So we have sub-teams focused on: PR/Corporate Communications, Events, Demand Generation, Marketing Intelligence, Product Marketing, Customer Success, and Creative Services. By having a horizontal team, more people are closer to the decision point, and more people have both the visibility into what needs to be done and the autonomy to make the call against what needs to be done (based on a system of shared values we’ve agreed to quarter over quarter.) As a result, the teams are nimble enough to adjust to not all customer needs, but to the most pressing, the most urgent, or the most impactful. 3. Fast-growing companies reach a point at which they need tools that will not just work for “now” but will grow with them. At what point in your growth trajectory did you realize it was time to future-proof your marketing tools? Our biggest point came last summer when we were using one very specific marketing automation system that was holding back our outbound sales efforts. We needed to make the switch. And as a result, we spent exceptional time researching (thank you to Scott Daily, Marketing Intelligence Manager on our team) and arrived at Marketo as the optimal solution. What I’ve learned is it’s important to let the business need and objective write the RFP for the appropriate technology solution without looking at a solution first. And we’ve had great success with Marketo, including making an investment in our newest team member and Marketo Expert, Alexis D’Alba. 4. Describe the marketing team’s relationship with sales. What was the biggest factor inaligning to the two areas of the business? I have run several sales teams in the past, and have had the benefit of running several functions (including product, service, and obviously, marketing, as well as overall integrated business lines.) I lead with that because one thing I think I have learned is empathy for successful cross-functional relationships. So to answer the question, we have a highly functioning relationship across sales and service, team member by team member. Because we’ve built empathy and respect for each other, and we all are focused on the customer’s need. 5. What advice would you give to other CMOs who are thinking about strategies for growth and how to structure their teams to support that growth? Have a model you believe in and can sell through and build support for. It will structure your thinking but it will give you a compass to guide you and refer to throughout. Start with what you need to do and who/what you have to work with so you can make progress quickly and efficiently. And use that starting point as a way to evaluate the longer-term decisions you need to make (team structure, technology solutions, partners, goals.) If done correctly, you can have enough of this work done and sized in 30-60 days.

By Sanjay Dholakia We’ve talked a lot about the fact that the rise of digital, social, and mobile has changed how every organization engages with its constituents. Taking this a step further, one thing that’s clear after reading the latest from our Mashable “Ask the CMO” series is that there are some industries more than others whose marketing approach has experienced compounded change driven from other dimensions. Healthcare in the United States, for example, is fundamentally shifting before our very eyes. The advent of the internet, its impact on information availability, and finally the Affordable Care Act have dramatically shifted the nature of patient-provider interactions presenting a slew of new challenges for marketers in the field. In this fascinating interview with David A. Feinberg, vice president of marketing and CMO of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, you’ll learn how one organization is reacting to and leading this shift from a provider perspective. He’s quick to point out that all this change has not only affected the structure of his marketing organization, but the very purpose of his strategies. It’s certainly been a big focus for us here at Marketo; how do we help marketers everywhere from Boston Children’s Hospital to the entire Kindred Healthcare system connect with patients in unprecedented ways that better serve their health? From the rise of consumer power to industry consolidation, read on for key trends in healthcare marketing. And of course, have a very healthy and happy New Year! The following interview originally appeared on Mashable. Thanks to the Internet, we're now able to instantly secure the information we need to make decisions in our lives. These can be mundane choices—like choosing a restaurant, or picking a gym to join to keep those New Year's resolutions alive—or important determinations, like selecting a specific doctor or hospital to receive care from. Today, hospitals, many of which have dozens of centers, thousands of employees and many more patients, know that access to healthcare information is one of the most important services they can provide. To learn how hospitals are innovating and communicating with patients in the Information Age, we spoke to David A. Feinberg, the vice president of marketing and CMO of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, the largest hospital by number of beds in the U.S., according to Becker's Hospital Review. Feinberg discusses the biggest trends in hospital marketing, how the structure and purpose of marketing has changed in the past two decades and much more. Q&A with David A. Feinberg, Vice President, Marketing and Chief Marketing Officer at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital 1. If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self that pertains to your career in marketing, what would it be? I would give the same piece of advice I received early on: Don't be afraid to fail. Remember that everyone who you think is a success has also experienced failure. At the same time, learn from your mistakes, and don't make the same mistake twice. 2. What's the most unexpectedly important skill from your past that you've found plays into your success? Growing up, my father ran a shoe store in a small town in Pennsylvania. One day he showed me, in detail, how to properly stock the shoes. There was a science to it. I should have been paying more attention to his instructions. When it came time for me to stock the shoes myself, I did it completely wrong. The times when my father yelled were few and far between, so when he yelled at me for a job not-so-well-done, it made me realize the importance of listening carefully. The lesson has stayed with me. I always remember that how you do something—the process and attention to detail—is as important as doing the job. 3. What are the three biggest trends that you see in healthcare marketing today? The first trend is the importance and influence of the consumer. Patients are taking charge of their healthcare in ways that we could not have imagined even a few years ago. We are challenged to adjust our systems to empower our patients while still providing the best care; we want to help them make choices that are both medically correct and right for their individual needs. The second trend is the consolidation and expansion of healthcare institutions and the way organizations are coming together. Consolidation creates challenges and opportunities. Large organizations need to have a strong brand with a cohesive message that stands out. The final trend is the variety of ways that patients get information. There was a time when the majority of information was physician-focused. Now, people get information from multiple sources, like the Internet and from friends and family. (Physicians, of course, are still a main resource). Patients are able to drive their own healthcare through access to information on medications, procedures and their medical team. The challenge becomes making information useful to patients and helping them make the best decisions. It is incumbent on respected healthcare institutions to make sure people are able to decipher the information all around them and to provide accurate, timely and useful information for patients to utilize. 4. When CEO Steven Corwin took over at NewYork-Presbyterian, he announced his plans to put patients first. What does that mean, and how has the marketing department contributed to that effort? The meaning is simple: It means the driving force behind all of our activities is focused on patient needs. The patient and their loved ones come before the needs of the doctor and the institution. Dr. Corwin challenged us to think about what is right for the patient and that is where our success is. Having that focus makes us better at what we do and allows us to provide the best care. From a marketing standpoint, we look at what we do and let the patient drive how we do it. In our ad campaign, the language is totally unscripted. All of the words come directly from the patient and really showcase what is meaningful to them. We hope they create a positive impression; we know they are inspiring and helpful to those who see them. People have connected with the ads, often giving themselves the courage to get the medical care they need. We're very proud of that. 5. David, you've been with NYP for nearly 20 years. How is your marketing department structured today, and how has it evolved over the past two decades? When I first joined NYP, there was a different vision for marketing. We were going to be a department that was hired out to various internal departments to help with individual projects. We quickly realized this model was not going to achieve our strategic objectives. The job of the marketing team changed, becoming a more rounded department and creating an overall branding strategy that has become a driving force throughout the hospital. Over the years, the marketing department has expanded alongside the hospital. For example, we've created a coordinated branding effort that includes messaging, the hospital's website and signage. Most recently, we've been coordinating the branding as we expand our network and bring new hospitals into the NYP family. In order to keep everything cohesive, we (including the public affairs team, the social media team and the internal communications team) work as a team across the institution to achieve a common goal. 6. How does NYP use technology for its marketing initiatives? How does it measure ROI, and how has that changed since you first started your career in healthcare? When I started, the measurements were very basic and included only transactions and reputation. Today, we are moving towards a more complete picture of how we impact the organization and the results we can achieve. I'd be exaggerating if I said we have it completely figured it out, but we are getting better. We are analyzing types of reputation and looking to link our marketing activities with patient volume and revenue. 7. Brand loyalty is extremely important in healthcare. Patients want to be able to trust and build a relationship with a hospital, whether they're tapping into emergency services, specialists, preventative care, etc. How does NYP ensure that its communication with patients reflects their different needs, and how do you continue to build the relationship even after their treatment has ended? We work hard to provide the information patients need in the way they need it. We just completed a video project that we're proud of. It describes what it is like to have a child at our facility. It sounds basic, but knowing what to expect is so important for new parents. When patients feel they are cared for—beyond their immediate medical health—it goes such a long way. In addition, we have a robust and well-developed system, a patient portal called myNYP, for patients to get their information digitally and in real time. Patients can sign on and get all of the information they need about their medications, procedures, doctors and what to do when they leave the hospital. The information can be accessed any time and on any kind of device. One of the things that distinguishes NYP is our ability to provide complete care, meaning the care does not stop when the patient leaves the hospital; it continues beyond our walls. 8. With more people consuming health content and finding doctors on their mobile devices, health care professionals can no longer rely solely on word-of-mouth and traditional mediums. How does NYP make sure it has a digital presence? How do you make sure your conversations with current and potential patients are consistent across all channels—email, advertising, social, etc. It's a challenge across the board, so let me give you a few examples. We are in the process of re-imagining our website as an integrated digital platform built around patient needs, both current and future. Everything about the site is looked at through the eyes of our patients and families, and it will be device and platform agnostic. No matter how patients want access, it will adapt to their needs. Additionally, we have a relationship with one of the largest providers of digital physician information, allowing us to make sure we have the most up-to-date data on our doctors. Patients can connect to their doctors, allowing them to get the care they need. This is a digital tool that can be used across all platforms. 9. The "Amazing Things" campaign was applauded by the medical and advertising community. Can you give an overview and talk about the immediate results of that campaign? What were the main things NewYork-Presbyterian learned from it? Where do I begin! Of course we are very proud of the campaign. It is unique in that it is totally about the patients—unscripted and totally real. We have gotten a tremendous response. When our caregivers tell people they work for NYP, the first thing they hear is how much other people love the advertisements. People may love the ads, but they really love what the ads say. They say so much in such a simple way; it is a reinforcement of something I learned long ago: The quality of the advertisement is the inverse of the complexity of its execution. Our campaign exemplifies this completely. It is so simple and so real, and that has proven to be very impactful.

MARKETO IN THE NEWS ‘Big four marketing cloud vendors top Gartner’s digital marketing hubs list’ CMO Australia Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce and Marketo are leading the way for digital marketing platform capabilities, but there are plenty of challengers. Ad tech companies MediaMath, Krux, Turn, DataXu, Rocket Fuel, Neustar and IgnitionOne were pegged as visionaries, but as a whole were dinged because of their lack of execution channels beyond paid media. [if !supportLists]·       [endif]Additional coverage: AdExchanger, Cloud Tweaks, Which-50 Marketo's CMO on the new future of digital marketing Mashable The final installment of our “Ask the CMO” series features Sanjay’s take on the future of marketing and how lessons he learned growing up apply to his role today. User review-based report shows marketing automation favourites CMO Australia According to the new 2016 Marketing Automation Software Grid from US-based business software review platform, G2 Crowd, vendors leading the field for their strong customer satisfaction scores and market presence were HubSpot, Pardot (Salesforce), Marketo, Act-On, Oracle Eloqua and iContact Pro. Of these, HubSpot earned the highest overall satisfaction score as well as the highest overall market presence score. Demand Gen Report Releases Third Annual Marketing Automation Outlook Guide Press Release A special report produced by this B2B marketing publication queries 20 marketing automation and martech experts to uncover 2016 emerging trends and themes. Marketing’s Heidi Bullock is featured as one of the experts. 7 Marketing Trends for 2016 MediaMath Blog The partner team’s Mike Stocker blogged for MediaMath, sharing a few marketing predictions for the year ahead. The 4 (r)evolutions that will shape marketing in 2016 (Translated) ITRNews.com (France) Conor’s piece from last week was picked up in 10 additional online publications. [if !supportLists]·       [endif]itrmanager.com, itrmobiles.com, itrinnovation.com, itrgames.com, itrsoftware.com, infodsi.com, itchannel.info, tendancesit.com, lavienumerique.com What does your desk look like? MBA Channel Additional pick-up of our infographic on what your desk says about the type of worker you are. CUSTOMERS & PARTNERS IN THE NEWS Inside General Electric’s media machine Boston Globe In recent years, GE has moved swiftly and aggressively into emerging media platforms, pumping out gigabytes of original content intended to brush the dust off its 124-year-old brand and prime a new generation of customers and employees. Ironically, HubSpot’s head of content is quoted, lauding GE’s approach. Interview with Justin Gray, CEO - LeadMD MarTech Advisor The CEO of partner LeadMD gives an overview of his career path and how he created a company out of building technology stacks centered around Marketo. Justin likes to say he was our “first paying customer.” C3 Energy Releases Customer Analytics Applications TD World C3 Energy has released the next generation of its C3 Customer Analytics application suite with significant enhancements that advance interactions between utilities and energy retailers across residential, commercial, and large enterprise customers. This also features C3’s pre-built integration with Marketo, which puts messages, alerts, and notifications linked to predictive analytics in the hands of the end customer, as controlled by the utility or retailer. This makes it even easier to seamlessly deliver relevant information to the right customer on the right device at the right time. The Morning Download: Microsoft Cuts Azure Cloud Prices in Battle with Amazon WSJ Microsoft Corp. has cut prices for its Azure cloud services, keeping pace with reductions by Amazon Web Services, which it has pledged to match. The company announced price reductions up to 17% on the latest version of the popular Azure D-series virtual machines. Google Display Rebounds, Outpacing Facebook in Growth from Thanksgiving Through End-of-Year, U.S. Paid Search Impressions See Impressive Rebound EconoTimes IgnitionOne, a global marketing cloud leader, today released its Q4 2015 Digital Marketing Report, demonstrating continuing trends in digital advertising metrics. Of the findings. Google’s shift to shopping ads in a carousel format has led to an overall increase in impressions. INDUSTRY NEWS Forrester: Advocate Marketing Technology Key To Customer Engagement Customer Think Today’s leading B2B technology companies have one thing in common: they’re successfully engaging their customer advocates to build their brands and drive revenue (on both the retention and acquisition fronts). According to a new report from Forrester’s Vice President and Principal Analyst Laura Ramos, formal advocate marketing programs “have a measurable, positive effect on your business, and fostering advocates is essential to becoming customer-obsessed.” The report quotes Merissa Hamilton, formerly of our Customer Marketing team. Four Predictions for Email Marketing That Won’t Come True in 2016 EConsultancy The author predicts that automated campaigns will still miss the mark on not “annoying” consumers, that last-click email attribution will still be used as a metric, companies won’t take data security seriously, and that innovation will be limited. How the Obama Administration Uses Marketing Automation WishPond The author of this piece uncovers that Obama has been using marketing automation since he was elected. Based on voter activities, the President’s campaign is able to send targeted messages and calls-to-action. Malvertising: Three Things You Need To Know Forbes Brian O'Kelley, cofounder and CEO of adtech company AppNexus breaks down ad fraud. 3 CMO trends for 2016 show how ‘digital disruption’ is evolving IT Business CA This piece focuses on Google algorithms, omni-channel, and streamlined marketing automation as top marketing drivers for 2016. Bringing Data and Analytics to the Water Cooler: How the Workplace Is Far More Data Savvy Today The Drum With more organizations relying on employees understanding changes, trends and intelligence in data-driven marketing, a study produced by software company Tableau has predicted  sharing data that is centralized, clean, and fast as the best way to bring data intelligence into the everyday conversation. Where’s B2B Marketing Headed for This Year MarTech Advisor Dennis Syracuse, CMO & GM at Madison Logic, presents an infographic on what industry leaders foresee for B2B marketers in 2016 – rise of cross-channel approach and predictive data being just two key insights

Posted: Friday, January 22, 2016 Author: Amber Tiffany The most personal conversations happen offline. While a personalized digital experience is certainly enticing and powerful, to really get to know a prospect—their interests, burning questions, and biggest challenges—you talk to them. And what better way to talk to someone than over the phone, where chances for misinterpretation are greatly reduced. I’m sure any sales rep will back me up on this one. Dial in on call intelligence Phone conversations are not only personal, but they’re also one of the most common interactions people have with a business. In fact, nearly three times as many people choose to call a business instead of filling out a form, according to Invoca’s State of the Mobile Experience report. And BIA/Kelsey reports that from 2014-2019, mobile calls to businesses will more than double, reaching an astounding 162 billion. This sharp rise in call volume makes sense when you think about how many people engage on mobile devices today. While digital marketers are certainly able to gather data on mobile engagement, many have little insight into what conversations are going on over the phone, and as a result, their personalization is suffering. Without visibility into these offline conversations, marketers are personalizing their website with the wrong messages or sending follow-up emails that have nothing to do with their prospect’s latest conversation with their company. The missing link is call intelligence. Call intelligence gives marketers visibility into the conversations that customers and prospects are having over the phone. With these insights, marketers not only get to understand customers on a new level, but their personalization is based off the entire omni-channel journey. Here are four ways call intelligence can help marketers personalize more holistically—based on both online and offline conversations: 1. Fix out-of-touch nurturing Lead nurturing is a great way to educate your prospects and keep them engaged with your business. Let’s say a prospect calls your business because they want to find out what differentiates you from your competition. Your sales rep has the perfect answers and makes the competition look pitiful. Well done! However, without personalization, nurturing can come across more like spam than a thoughtful way to educate and engage your prospects. If your marketing automation system didn’t get the memo about offline conversations because you didn’t have a way to share that information, like call intelligence technology, your leads remain in the same generic, top-of-funnel nurturing track. The next thing you know, your leads get an email talking about irrelevant use cases. Too bad you didn’t send them your new buyer guide complete with competitive advantages instead! With the right tools, you can automatically sync call data with your marketing automation, which helps you make sure prospects are dropped into the right nurturing tracks and your follow-up message are relevant. 2. Retarget with the right information Retargeting can re-engage a prospect with a personalized ad. For example, after having an in-depth conversation with one of your sales reps at a tradeshow, your prospect may do a quick Google search for your company and your targeted ad pops up. From there they click on it and head to your landing page. Instead of filling out a form, they want to talk through some question now, so they do what a lot of motivated buyers do—pick up the phone to learn more and get ready to make a purchase. Whoohoo! But if you’re retargeting based on an incomplete picture, you could be sending a dangerous message. If your retargeting platform is out of the loop, completely oblivious to the offline conversation (or other online conversations), it’ll think it’s time to retarget this “unconverted” visitor with a discount offer. The result is an annoyed customer who is now angry that they were about to pay full price. This is a terrible, impersonal customer experience, but unfortunately it happens all the time. 3. Do Web Personalization right Web personalization tools empower marketers to create digital experiences uniquely tailored to each visitor by showing them content and creating an experience based on their needs and preferences, as indicated by their previous activity. Sounds cool, right? For personalization to be truly effective, it has to take the entire omni-channel customer journey into account. If it doesn’t, you could be “personalizing” in the wrong direction. For instance, if you know someone is likely to call your business, why not personalize your website with your phone number and click-to-call buttons for your mobile visitors? Likewise, if a prospect has already called your company, their next visit to your website needs to reflect the conversation. Integrating call intelligence with your web personalization efforts empowers you to show web visitors content related to the product they mentioned over the phone and encourages them to the next step in the journey. 4. Get your sales reps in the loop Personalized marketing doesn’t stop after the digital journey, or at least it shouldn’t. If a sales rep answers the phone and goes through a generic list of questions followed by the boilerplate pitch, the personalized experience is shattered. The trick is to give your sales rep access to real-time information on the caller and their engagement history. Tools like call intelligence, combined with the power of your marketing automation platform, provide demographic data that allow you to share which campaigns and content a prospect has interacted with. The best part? The sale rep can access this data in real-time. This level of insight helps reps customize the conversation. As a marketer, you’ve helped create a seamless omni-channel experience. It’s easy to get lost in the digital realm, but remember that just as it’s important to explore new channels, it’s critical to go back to your roots and dial in on the basics. Use customer conversations, both online and offline, to personalize for your customer’s entire journey. Each conversation has valuable insights that can be used across channels and touchpoints to make your audience feel that they are valued and heard. If you don’t know what’s going on over the phone, you’re probably put your foot in your mouth more often that you’d like. What steps have you taken to ensure a consistent omni-channel experience for your customer? Share your experience in the comments section below!

By Sanjay Dholakia We’ve reached the last installment of our “Ask the CMO: Lessons Learned” series with Mashable. What an incredible collection of reflections and insights from so many accomplished CMOs! For the final post, I had the honor of sitting down with Mashable to reflect on my own lessons learned and where I see our great profession headed. I hope you’ve enjoyed following this series as much as I have and are inspired to dive headfirst into this Next Era of marketing. And don’t worry—there will be plenty more “Ask the CMO” stories with great marketers in the coming weeks, so stay tuned! The following interview originally appeared on Mashable. The scene: A smoke-filled room clamors with anger, frustration and optimism as men in earth-tone suits and skinny wool ties debate—from art to copy to product placement—the best ways to sell dishwasher fluid. At long last, they agree, clink their glasses of brandy and set a plan in motion for six months down the road. That's marketing in a nutshell, right? A closed-door, one-size-fits-all operation that moves at the speed of molasses. Well, let's just say that picture is a little outdated. And not just because of the outfits. Today, technology plays a massive role in marketing strategy and execution: Automation has turned guesswork into a precise science and months of planning into nanoseconds. Companies like Marketo are leading the way in marketing automation technology, pushing boundaries and helping CMOs everywhere embrace the future. Of course, this is pretty complex stuff. So we had a chat with Marketo CMO, Sanjay Dholakia, to put the current state of marketing—and the future—into perspective. Q&A with Marketo CMO Sanjay Dholakia 1. If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self that pertains to your career in marketing, what would it be? The path to success is embracing your unique skill set. Don't get hung up on being something that you think others want you to be. In my early professional years in the strategy consulting world, I believed that I needed to prove how smart and analytical I was. I vividly remember standing around with some partners during my time at McKinsey and hearing one partner observe to another, "Sanjay should be in sales and marketing." There I was trying to be this strategy guy, so I took it as a grave insult! But the truth is that he was just recognizing my unique strengths. If I had it all to do over again, I would still love strategy, but I would also focus on my natural talents and passion. 2. What's the most unexpectedly important skill from your past that you've found plays into your success? (For example, maybe a high school job taught you about the importance of teamwork.) Humility. I learned early on what it means to be on a team. When I was very young, I fancied myself a fairly good baseball player. I was in a friend's neighborhood playing in the sandlot, and I was barking instructions and orders and coaching tips to my team. I will never forget this—the mom of one of the kids on the team was watching us and yelled from her front door, "Hey, why don't you let Mr. Know-It-All do it?" We lost the game, and I went home and talked to my mom about it. She said, "Live life by the real estate theory." She didn't mean location. What said was, "You should always buy the ugly house on block, because if you surround yourself with prettier houses, your stock will rise. If you buy the prettiest house, you've already set the market ceiling. Always try to surround yourself with better, smarter people than you, and you will do great." Ever since, I've sought out environments and places in which I would be the dumb guy in the room. In order to build teams, I actively seek out people who are better than me in every dimension I can find. Throwback: I learned very young that surrounding himself with a great team leads to championships. 3. You're the barber's barber. What's it like being the CMO of a company dedicated to helping CMOs and marketers? I've held a number of incredible positions in my lifetime—CEO, GM of a public company, strategy consultant. I've said it on stage in a room of thousands of people, and I've said it in an interview to an audience of one: I consider this role to be the great privilege of my career. I feel this way for two main reasons. First, I love that I get to interact and learn from smart marketers around the world every day. Having an ability to translate that back directly into my day job is a gift. The second piece is that we are at a fortuitous moment in the world of marketing—we refer to it as the era of engagement marketing. Marketing has changed more in the last five years than it has in the last 500, and will change more in the next five years than we have seen to-date. The opportunity to be here in this moment in time working with smart marketers around the world to shape that change is a gift. 4. Marketo has ties to Madison Avenue, but is very much a Silicon Valley company—what are the misconceptions around marketing automation, and what are the three biggest trends you're seeing in the space? One misconception is that marketing automation is a thing strictly for B2B marketers. Another is that marketing automation is an acquisition-focused tool, designed to acquire "leads." It's really much bigger than that. In terms of trends, I believe this is the year that marketing automation goes completely mainstream—it's something for every organization. Our clients include schools, like George Washington University, and nonprofits, like OxFam. We have financial services clients like Charles Schwab and manufacturing companies like GE. We have sports teams, like the Portland Trail Blazers, or health and lifestyle apps, like Under Armour's MyFitnessPal. Every type of organization, marketer and industry—regardless of profile—needs this capability. This trend of marketing automation is growing up beyond the acquisition side of world to truly becoming the brain center or nervous system for all customer engagement across the entire customer lifecycle—retention, loyalty, advocacy, etc. Marketing automation is becoming the new advertising. Marketers are starting to figure out how to connect the art of paid advertising to the science of engagement marketing—the collision of advertising technology and marketing technology—which is creating this ability to get down to real individual levels of communication with customers. That is what’s making all the difference. 5. What's the most important thing for Marketo to communicate in its own marketing? How do you ensure the company stays above the "noise" from competitors/startups? Great question. Marketers are being given more and more responsibility and taking on more and more in their organizations, which is something we refer to as a "Marketing First world." So, first off, it's essential that Marketo really stays true to our very unique position in the market, which is that we are the only real Marketing First company. The only thing we do is think about marketers and their success, and our ability to stay true to that brand and emphasize that is unique. The second thing is really practicing what we preach, namely around the concept of engagement marketing that I mentioned before, which is the belief that the only way to successfully market is to build individualized relationships with people based on relevant and helpful content and ongoing interaction. All the other approaches are just noise. This approach will lead to people inviting marketing messages into the conversation and relationship as opposed to ignoring us. We're not trying to shout at people through billboards at the Chicago O'Hare Airport; that's not the foundation of a trust-based relationship. And third, it's necessary for us to develop and focus on a community of really smart marketers around the world, which is something we refer to as the Marketing Nation. Creating this community will further cement Marketo's position above the fray or noise, so long as it's the club that people want to be a part of because that's where they can interact with other smart people. It's the same type of value-add and trust that I mentioned in my last point. 6. One thing that appears to be unique to Marketo is the "Marketing Nation." Can you talk a little about what that is? In my travels as the barber's barber, what I've come to learn—and this may be shocking coming from the CMO of a software company—is that marketers don't care about the technology. What they really care about is being successful. They want to grow their careers and personal skill sets and brands. Marketo wants to continue to set the tech standard from an innovation standpoint—and we will—but we also want to create the definitive community literally and figuratively, physically and virtually where smart marketers come together to learn and shape the future of the industry. It's not the Marketo Nation—it really is the Marketing Nation. It's all about creating success for marketers across all the dimensions they desire, regardless of the tools they're using. Sure, if we help to build it and fuel it, there's an advantage that accrues for Marketo, but we're really doing it because we truly believe in this seismic shift that's happening in marketing and truly want to be part of this community that's helping drive success for marketers. It is a core part of our brand. We are for marketers by marketers. 7. Describe how technology is changing the backend of marketing. Do you feel like a modern CMO has to be equal parts CCO and CTO? As I think about it, the answer is probably "yes," with some nuances. It makes me think of my favorite quip about the "genius of 'and' versus the tyranny of 'or.'" People ask, "Is marketing art, or is it science?" The answer is really just "yes." Marketing will always be about art and creativity—that is what makes marketing great marketing. But because of this new digital, social world and access to technology and data, we're able to engage with customers on the personal levels that we've all aspired to reach. These CMOs have to be agile at least in the concepts of technology and analytical skill sets. They don't need to be able to do everything but have to be able to understand how these things contribute to moving their business and creating leverage. I talk about the new prototype for the CMO as a Da Vinci—they must be both a scientist and an artist. 8. Likewise, it's not just about the CMO—it's about his or her team as well. What skills do you look for at the non-executive level? Gosh, there are a myriad of skills that a marketing organization has to have. One of the things I often say is that there is no single marketing function. The reality is that inside of marketing there is an ever-growing number of disciplines, from creative and brand design to product marketing to demand generation to customer marketing to communications, etc. My cop out answer is that you're probably looking for people with all of these functional capabilities. But, more importantly, in this new world new era of engagement marketing, the skills I look for are marketers who understand how to create relationships with customers and partners as conversations—just like real relationships. The best marketers have storytelling capabilities. The ability to engage people with compelling stories and content is another critical piece. Regardless of where you sit, marketing is a team sport. Period—full stop. The ability to collaborate is imperative. We have to build relationships with people regardless of what channel they're on. It's a single conversation, and marketers likely have to collaborate with other marketers to have that conversation. It's about raw, intellectual curiosity. We need marketers who are going to be innovative because they are constantly looking to learn and try new things. 9. Ad blocking has become the newest disruptor in the marketing technology industry. What advice or reassurances do you have for marketers as they tackle this challenge? The concept of ad blocking has been around for a long time. Why? People don't like ads, and if they can find ways around them, they will use them. Why do you think the DVR became popular? People by and large don't want to see ads. If I'm browsing the web, I don't have a huge interest in seeing ads. We as marketers have to assume this trend is inexorable. Advertising as we know it has shifted toward a need for engagement marketing. The way around it is by permission, where people allow you into their lives and look forward to hearing from you because you are a trusted person who provides them with relevant and useful information. That's why we're seeing a collision of advertising technology and marketing technology. 10. Looking into the future, what do you think will be the CMO's most valuable resource in 15 years? Well, Marketo, of course, haha! Too much?

By: Chris Gillespie Posted: January 25, 2016 | Sales Have you ever photocopied a piece of paper so many times that the copies faded and became hard to read? This is called a transcription error, and it happens when little mistakes add up over time to make a big difference. This also happens in sales when you repeat your pitch over and over again until small details get lost, the delivery gets muddied, and your pitch loses its edge and effectiveness. Once a quarter, it’s important to reset your habits to make sure that you’re not falling victim to this process. Essentially, you need to get back to the basics and start fresh. A big part of this refresh involves motivating yourself. Do you remember the bright and shiny optimism that you felt when you first started your job? How absolutely certain you were about your product? How you looked up to the more tenured salespeople and picked their brains to find out what they were doing differently? To dial in on this energy, you need to do assess yourself to determine what you’re doing well and poorly. So use this checklist to see how you stack up. If you start to feel a little inadequate, that’s great! You’ve identified the key areas that you need to work on, and there’s reassurance in knowing exactly what you need to do. And if you’re not selling more than you want to be (who is, really?), then this gives you a clear path forward to start the quarter with a crisp, clean page. Goals 1. Are my goals written down and up-to-date? Goals change over time, so it’s a good idea to revisit them. Keeping them consistent is good so you can track your progress, but it’s okay to tweak them occasionally. People learn as they go, and you shouldn’t stick to anything that doesn’t still make sense. Write your goals down, keep them visible, and share them with peers to hold yourself accountable. Don’t have any goals written down from last quarter? There’s never a better time to start than now. Sample goals: Achieve a 35% closed-won opportunity conversion by April 1 Hit 110% of year-to-date plan by April 1 Generate 3 new outbound sales opportunities each month, 9 per quarter this year 2. Am I on-track with my goals? Did I reach them? If not, where can I improve? Keep yourself honest. Many people set goals, but very few people keep them (just look at gym attendance in January versus February). Make sure your goals are SMART (simple, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound). This is a great article if you’re interested in the specifics on goal setting. Process 3. Am I following a template for discovery calls, or have I gotten lazy and just started winging it? What about my emails? This is where those nasty transcription errors start slipping in. I’ve found that over time, I may forget to do basic things like set agendas for my discovery calls, and then run into issues where we don’t cover the right topics in order (or at all). If your company doesn’t have a defined template, try your hand at making one. Consolidating your tried-and-true best practices into a template can be a great team exercise. 4. Did I refresh my prospecting emails and content links? The content that you share with your prospects can become stale, and links can get broken or outdated. Make sure that you’re not sending around any whitepapers from 2011 or videos that don’t work. This is a great time to check-in with the marketing team to see what new and exciting content you can share. 5. Am I still looking for leads in the same places? It might just be part of the nature of being a salesperson, but there’s a certain sense of fear that comes over you when you feel like you’ve run out of leads. Either you’re account-based and telling your boss “I need the Glengarry leads!” or you’re territory-based and you’re convinced that you’ve already sold to every single company in the state of New Jersey. Whether you’re a small start-up or large enterprise, you’re probably wrong. The total addressable market of territories—even mid-sized companies—is tens of thousands of leads. What’s really happened is that you’ve “photocopied” the same prospecting idea so many times that it’s become a blank piece of paper. So get a new piece of paper!Refresh your approach by having someone else take a look at what you’ve done and poke holes in it. Have you tried looking at the competitors of companies you’ve sold to? Have you tried looking at companies that your current customers have previously worked for? I promise you, the issue is not in the number of leads available, but your mindset. If you are able to shift it, you’ll magically start seeing new lists and thinking up new sources.Here’s a good exercise to help you find your focus: List off all of the deals that you won in the last quarter. Did the majority of your deals come from one vertical, region, or account? If there’s a noticeable trend, prioritize your efforts in the new quarter on that. And don’t forget to ask your now happy customers for referrals! 6. Am I utilizing all of my tools? Are you utilizing all of your sales channels or have you defaulted to just sending emails when you could be calling? If it’s the latter, create a goal for yourself to rectify that. A successful rep uses every available channel, so optimize your outbound prospecting strategy.Don’t forget about the tools that your company provides that you may not be taking advantage of. Some examples include data sources, partner co-selling, and email marketing tools. If none of these exist, be an innovator and start doing your own. Find a list of partners and start building a relationship with them to see if you can pass each other leads or help each other close deals.And there are personal skills and tools—what about your company’s learning-reimbursement program? Most companies will pay you to take classes in related areas that can either deepen your current skills or prepare you for your next role. Sales Skills 7. Am I selling to the best of my ability? Your selling skill is another place where transcription errors come into play, so have your colleagues listen to one of your cold calls and provide honest feedback. As salespeople, we may stop doing things by the book over time, including important parts of a call like up-front contracts, agendas, and staying on client’s calendars. Identify which fundamentals you need to touch up on, and nothing helps you do this faster than an impartial outside perspective.If you’re truly interested in improving, show your colleagues your worst calls. Don’t be shy, your colleagues feedback can only help you and will encourage a supportive relationship. Only sharing the best ones is like inviting guests in through the back door because the front of the house is on fire. 8. What are the top skills that I need to work on? As a salesperson, you’re probably well aware of your strengths and use these to your advantage whenever you can. But it’s just as important to identify your weaknesses and improve on them so that you can truly become invincible.To identify the skills you need to work on, draw a table with two columns like I’ve done for myself below. In the left column, list off all of your lost opportunities, and then in the right column, list all of the reasons why they didn’t close. Which ones occurred the most? Other examples: Not qualified properly Didn’t build a relationship Competitor told a better story Pricing Next to each reason, list the frequency, and then come up with ways to improve. Team Building 9. Did I make time for my team outside of work? Team building is crucial to building and developing relationships with your peers, but when things get busy, group activities are typically the first thing on the chopping block. Change this by getting lunch with your team and making time outside of work to catch up with them. Strong team ties can help you close deals. 10. Did I get to know people outside of my department? It’s extremely important for your success in sales to be aligned with departments beyond your own; you never know when you’re going to have to approach engineering or support with a question. By building these relationships early, you can avoid bothering them at the eleventh hour of your deal cycle when you’re completely frantic and begging for help. Tackle all of these one-by-one to set yourself up for a fantastic quarter. Remember, no matter how good of a salesperson you are, all skills are perishable and fade over time. If you’ve just been photocopying the same pitch over and over for too many months now, it’s guaranteed to missing some key details. Do yourself a favor and turn over a new page. ­ What other things should be on this checklist? Let me know in the comments below!

MARKETO IN THE NEWS Mass marketing to engagement marketing is required (translated) Advertimes (Japan) This article resulted from an interview our Japan team secured for Phil. In the piece, Phil highlihgts that the expansion of digital has changed the relationship with customers and introduces the concept of "Engagement Marketing." Visa Inc. Appoints Lynne Biggar as Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Press Release Marketo board member Lynne Biggar will join the company as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, effective February 1. She will also serve as a member of the company’s Executive Committee and Operating Committee. Ms. Biggar joins Visa from Time Inc. where she was the Executive Vice President, Consumer Marketing & Revenue. Digital Marketing’s New Future, According to Marketo’s CMO MSN Sanjay’s “Ask the CMO” Q&A was picked up by MSN video. What Does Your Desk Say About You? The State Of Your Workspace Might Reveal More Than You Think — INFOGRAPHIC Bustle Additional pick-up of the Marketo-generated infographic. CUSTOMERS & PARTNERS IN THE NEWS How a small design tweak got millions more people to use one of Facebook's products Business Insider Facebook has long been the social login leader, according to Gigya data, but the company recently made a small design tweak that hugely boosted its number of new logins. Facebook’s Deb Liu, VP of Platform, says that simplifying permissions, changing the look and feel of login dialogs, and advances on the review side led to a "significantly improved" click-through-rate for logins last year. Facebook gives brands more ways to convince you to sign up for news VentureBeat Facebook’s lead ads are getting an update. The company announced that several changes are coming to the ad format that lets people easily sign up for more information around a specific campaign. Starting today, advertisers can tweak their ads so that they’re more contextual, both with a new information card and images, thanks to the new carousel format. Marketo is listed as a key partner. How marketers are using Facebook's direct messaging apps Marketing Dive Even though Facebook Messenger and Facebook--owned WhatsApp don’t allow for third-party advertising, brands are making use of the direct-message apps for marketing. Interview with Alicianne Rand, VP Marketing - NewsCred MarTech Advisor This Marketo partner highlights Marketo as a key component of its news stack, saying that its connection with Salesforce CRM has given NewsCred the ability to understand exactly what content is influencing prospects, customer upsells, and revenue. The company’s end goal (today and going into 2016) is to produce more of the stuff that works -- not just the content that drives top-line growth, but also content that helps them close deals. #FlipMyFunnel #ABM Innovators: Featured Speaker Q&A with Adam New-Waterson Customer Think LeanData’s CMO – who spoke at RKO – spotlights Marketo as one of the primary tools that has helped the company implement and execute ABM. INDUSTRY NEWS 12 questions to ask marketing automation vendors (before you buy) CMO (AU) This widely syndicated piece (first appeared on CIO.com) recommends what you should ask vendors when building your marketing technology stack. CES 2016 Ends with Critical Takeaways for the Marketing and Ad Tech Sectors MarTech Advisor The Consumer Electronics Show, also known as CES, has offered some major insights about the future of marketing and advertising technology. With more than 170,000 attendees from various industries, the event brought forth some ground-breaking innovations in IoT, computing technologies, programmatic advertising, virtual reality, and more. Brave: New Ad Blocking Browser Promises More Privacy & Faster Page Loading Marketing Land Brave speeds up page loading by blocking ads and tracking technologies: cookies, pixels, fingerprinting and scripts.  It will have ads, just not those that “target ads based on browser-side intent signals phrased in a standard vocabulary, and without a persistent user ID or highly re-identifiable cookie.” In this way, Brave seeks to strike a balance between publishers, marketers and privacy. Predictive analytics drives almost 3 times B2B revenue growth: Study Marketing Dive In a new study,  78% of respondents reporting marketing's role has expanded from demand generation to also include deal acceleration. 10 trends in B2B marketing - In with the old, out with the new? The Drum The evolving B2B marketing trends reveal that tried and true strategies like email campaigns are back in vogue while the term ‘digital advertising’ is outdated. With content marketing, marketing automation, paid amplification and mobile optimization seen as emerging trends, ad blocking and BOT- fraud will increasingly pose challenges to B2B marketers. Here are ten B2B marketing trends to be on the look out for. Adware shunned from online advertisers’ leadership bash ITProPortal Adware, the online advertising blocking company, says that it has been uninvited from an advertising industry confab after the Interactive Advertising Bureau withdrew its approval for Adware to attend the Annual Leadership bash in California this weekend. Why Cross-Device Programmatic Advertising Is Ready to Take Off in 2016 Ad Week Consumers increasingly get their content across smartphones, laptops and desktops, so brands are eager to run campaigns that reach consumers on every one of those screens. With technology catching up to demand, marketers are predicting that 2016 will be cross-device programmatic's great leap forward. The era of targeting only to a particular device appears to be on the way out. Medical publishers eye new ad viewability rules Medical Marketing & Media A group of medical publishers will attempt to develop a new industry standard for digital advertising viewability, a much debated topic that has vexed the broader advertising industry. Viewability—how long is long enough for a user to have viewed a digital ad successfully—has cropped up in recent years as one of the more challenging media issues, and one that needs to be addressed as the business of digital advertising matures. In healthcare, experts say, it's no different. Building the marketing technology stack Diginomica This piece from Diginomica urges marketers to focus on the customer, use data effectively, and produce content that will actually move the needle. Ad tech M&A continues to rise as investors continue to pummel stock prices The Drum Ad tech acquisitions surged between Q3 and Q4 last year, with such providers accounting for almost a third of all M&A deals in all of the ad tech/martech sector during the final quarter of last year, according to a study from Results International. Intent-driven marketing: how hard is it really? AdNews Massive amounts of intent data are available to marketers, and now is the time to lean on this information to improve business outcomes. This piece explores type of experience can consumers can expect from intent-driven marketing. Which Brands Are Creating the Future of Digital Marketing? Content Standard At CES 2016 earlier this month, one of the big storylines among leading enterprises was the aggressive efforts to invest in artificial intelligence. Those efforts have been characterized as an innovative move, yet also something of a gamble, since the exact uses and value of AI remain unclear. But marketers are certain AI has a place in digital marketing‘s future, and those forward-thinking experts see plenty of value in the AI infrastructures those brands are looking to build. Deutsch Vets Open Creative Agency With Investment Arm Advertising Age Adland vets Mike Duda and Brent Vartan have opened an agency called Bullish Inc. and they want to have skin in the game with every client. Within the agency, which will focus on brand strategy and creative execution, each account will operate on a pay-for-performance compensation model. For some clients, that could mean a bonus based on meeting key performance indicators, such as sales, brand shift and advocacy. For others, it may mean a return on taking equity in the client's business. Snapchat's the most popular social platform for new ad campaigns: Study Marketing Dive According to eMarketer, a Cowen and Company survey of senior U.S. ad buyers on what social media platform they expected to begin advertising on in 2016 for the first time shows Snapchat led the list at 22%, trailed significantly by Instagram and Pinterest at 12%. In research from last September, RBC Capital Markets and Advertising Age found that Instagram was the leading social media platform for interest in allocating ad budgets this year at 72%. That survey had Snapchat in third place at 36%. MARKETING AUTOMATION HINDERED BY CLASSIC DATA ISSUES; OPENPRISE'S 2016 MARTECH DATA REPORT REVEALS Press Release Openprise, a data automation SaaS company, issued its inaugural 2016 MarTech Data Report today. Based on an online survey that gathered insights from more than 400 U.S. sales and marketing professionals, the report examines trends in data management and marketing automation, as well as 2016 MarTech priorities and challenges. How Data-Enhanced Storytelling Is Rapidly Reshaping Both Content and Advertising Ad Week In its inaugural gathering Thursday, Digital Storytelling, a newly sanctioned event of the Sundance Film Festival, ambitiously set out to better link brand marketers with digital content creators as well as discuss how return on investment on that content will grow and evolve beyond interruptive advertising models.

By: Kylie Ora Lobell Posted: February 1, 2016 | Content Marketing Great content should be at the core of your marketing initiatives, but to produce this content, you need to hire talented creators. If you own a small to medium-sized business, you may not have the budget to take on a staff of full-time writers, photographers, videographers, graphic designers, or developers. This is where freelance employees come into play. With freelancers, you can save money on operational costs since you don’t need to provide benefits or workspace. Plus, you can pick and choose whom you want on your content creation team from a pool of freelancers around the world. By not depending on local workers, you’re able to put together a diverse team from a variety of backgrounds and niches. However, if you’re going to be integrating a number of different freelancers into your company, you need the right tools to manage them efficiently. These are five types of tools that you can utilize to ensure that your content marketing campaigns stay organized and drive results: 1. Finding freelancers Doing a Google search or finding referrals for freelancers is a time-consuming process. Instead, you can look at job boards where top talent congregates. One example is the Upwork platform, which gives you the opportunity to find freelancers for every type of content creation. There are more than 10 million independent workers from over 180 countries on the site. Once hired, you can message back and forth with your freelancers, create milestones they have to meet, and pay them through the site. Another site for finding workers is MediaBistro, where you can either post jobs or browse through the talent on the site. All freelancers list their resumes, samples, and experience, which means you can vet them before making contact. To find freelance bloggers specifically, try ProBlogger, where you can list your jobs and gain access to bloggers who are actively looking to be hired. 2.Blogging Without a solid content management system in place, you’ll have a difficult time overseeing all your freelancers and their work. Going back and forth through emails and Google docs won’t cut it. Instead, you need to find a blogging platform that works for you and your team. WordPress is a classic choice for content creation. Aside from being free, it includes a variety of plugins that optimize your blog for SEO and promotional purposes. All your freelance writers have to do is log into your website’s WordPress account, copy and paste in their work, and fill in all the correct SEO information through the Yoast SEO plugin. Then, the post will show up in your queue. Once it’s submitted, you and your editors can go in, edit the piece, and hit publish. This way, your writers don’t need to email you their work, which ends up making more work for you because you have to manually load it in. Also, it’s much easier to organize all the work your freelancers have completed. An alternative to WordPress is Google’s Blogger, which is also a free and simple to use platform. It contains gadgets as opposed to WordPress’ widgets, and includes Google integrations like AdSense and Analytics, allowing you to easily monetize your company blog and monitor traffic. 3. Invoicing and tracking hours Working with so many freelancers can become complicated, and it’s important for you to evaluate how much money is being spent vs. how much is being generated through your efforts. Without a centralized platform, you’re going to be lost. One option is Due.com, which can assist you with the logistical side of overseeing your freelancers and their pay. This platform has time tracking and invoice tools that allow you to view how many hours your freelancers are working and what invoices you need to take care of. It also generates detailed reports so you know where you are in terms of your finances. Another platform for managing freelancers financially is Zenefits, which gives you peace of mind that your independent contractors are being paid on time. You can input how much time freelancers spent working and make sure they’re receiving their benefits (if you provide any for them). If you’re running a small operation, Zenefits eliminates the need for hiring HR talent. 4. Managing projects If you have multiple freelancers working on one project and there are many different elements to keep track of, you need a project management system. BaseCamp is a popular choice for project management. Through this tool, you and your team can upload files and store your collective to-do lists. It shows who worked on which project and when. Whenever a project is updated, those that are involved are sent emails so they can go in and complete their assigned tasks. You might also want to try Smartsheet, which is customizable project management software used by companies like Hilton, Groupon, and Netflix. It’s a great option if your business is utilizing spreadsheets in order to complete projects. Another option is Zoho Projects (pictured below), which comes with a timeline that’s similar to a social media feed. You can quickly scroll through it and see where you’re at with tasks. You can also integrate it with Dropbox and use it on your Android or iPhone. 5. Tracking blog posts and progress If a project management system is too complicated for what you want to do, you can work on a free or low cost tool that is strictly used to oversee your blog. Trello is a simple tool if you’re just getting started with freelancers. It’s also perfect for small teams. All you do is create boards for your freelancers and then make individual cards to ensure that each project is progressing. This platform lets you drag and drop files and include pictures and links, so it’s easy to use even for those who aren’t technologically savvy. You might also want to look into BamBam!, a platform that includes milestones and newsfeeds for your projects and is free for 10 users or less. If you’re a startup but you want project management that’s suitable for the corporate world, BamBam! may be the right choice for you. Of course, there are more robust content platforms that integrate with your marketing automation platform and offer two or more of these capabilities with one piece of software. These platforms often are an investment worth making because they will scale and grow with your business. Freelancers can greatly enhance your content creation campaigns. Once you have the best tools in your back pocket to manage them, you’ll be on your way to coming up with successful ideas that produce a huge ROI for your company. What other tools do you use to manage your freelance team of content creators? Let me know in the comments section below.

MARKETO IN THE NEWS The 7 best marketing automation features in Marketo CIO This very positive article includes a few paragraphs providing an overview of Marketo, including a mention of our 10-year anniversary, before highlighting our ‘mobile tools,’ the Marketing Nation, and other features.  The section on ‘Marketing Nation’, #5, is a great summary and key differentiator. The story features comments from Marketo customers including our friend Jennifer Clegg at CA Technologies and partner Justin Gray at LeadMD. ·       The article was also syndicated in MIS Asia. 4 key marketing automation features Marketo lacks CIO The second article focused on features that customers would like to see Marketo improve. Unfortunately, the title was written by an editor and not the journalist who had written the article. One of the improvements has actually been nullified as we have since added that feature in a new release. Expect all of our competitors to receive the same dual-article coverage. ·       The article was also syndicated in ComputerWorld Singapore. Ten Years of Marketo CMS Critic This piece states that with clients like Intel and Acquia, Marketo has grown into one of the most trusted marketing automation systems on the market. The 4 marketing (r) evolutions expected in 2016 gpomag.fr (France) We’ve had some more coverage on our ‘predictions for 2016’ piece, making this 16 pieces of coverage on this in France in total. The most recent piece has been published in, the online version of GPO (Gérer, Prévoir, Optimiser), which is an enterprise publication focused on management, HR, marketing, finance, etc. Snackable Content: Shorter content for smaller attention spans Online Marketing (Germany) Infographic What Your Desk Says About You Grazia (France) Additional infographic pick-up in a well-known French fashion magazine, as well as rhperformances.fr.Rhperformances.fr is a French consulting and recruitment agency specialized in HR. CUSTOMERS & PARTNERS IN THE NEWS Marketing, Change and Higher Ed Inside Higher Ed The head of content strategy from Marketo partner Fathom calls out our recent Mashable “Ask the CMO” series in his byline in this top education trade. As he points out, the industry trends that the CMO of Georgetown Business School highlighted in her interview all have to do with personalization. Do People Actually Watch Marketing Videos? Canadian Startup Vidyard Can Tell Fortune On Tuesday, Vidyard disclosed another $35 million in venture funding led by Battery Ventures to drive adoption. So far, the six-year-old Kitchener, Ontario, company has signed close to 1,000 businesses as customers—including companies like Citibank, LinkedIn, and TD Ameritrade—said co-founder and CEO Michael Litt. The New Reach Of Beacons: Broadway, Rite-Aid, Sales Terminals MediaPost This piece talks about our beacon partner Gimbal and upcoming beacon partner Footmarks. Theaters are being outfitted with Gimbal beacons and other location-based technology with Urban Airship’s mobile engagement platform. Audiences can receive messages when they are in the theater, before the show, during intermission and after the show ends. How to Get the Most Out of Summit 2016 MudTime Marketing Joe Reitz, Marketo Champion, wrote this great blog for newbies wondering how to get the most out of Summit. Survey Finds Extremely Poor Sales Lead Follow Up Across Nine Industries Press Release Conversica compared best-practice research with real-world execution and found that in many cases even direct website inquiries-presumably the hottest of prospects-were being ignored. The good news is that several companies showed outstanding lead follow-up practices and earned the top A grade, including Salesforce,Marketo, Zend Technologies, Anderson Subaru of Pensacola, Florida and Waldorf College in Forest City, Iowa. Microsoft adds new capabilities on Office 365 to tap enterprises Financial Express Microsoft is rolling out new technology that applies machine learning to the way people work to empower individual to work more effectively. The new Microsoft Office 365 comes with, Skype for Business that enables communication-powered productivity. With Power BI content packs for popular services such as Salesforce, QuickBooks Online, Marketo employees can begin visualizing the data in just minutes. 5 Ways B2B Sales and Marketing will evolve in 2016 MarTech Advisor Sean Zinsmeister, Senior Director of Product Marketing at partner Infer, points out the key changes he expects – from ABM becoming ubiquitous to predictive getting smarter and some others. Talking DoubleDutch about event marketing Diginomica Lawrence Coburn, CEO DoubleDutch says that to date, DoubleDutch is recording 68% adoption which means that a person signs up and does something with the app. Coburn thinks there’s much more that can be done that in turn will drive further adoption but, more important, value back to event attendees and organizers. INDUSTRY NEWS Collaboration to be Key As CMOs Start to Outspend CIOs MarTech Advisor According to a report, digital marketing budgets are set to increase by eight percent during 2015. This shows that marketing has a growing influence on technology spending, with Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) slated to outspend Chief Information Officers (CIOs) by 2017. Marcoms and ad tech merger activity: 2015 round-up MediaIntel Last year's ad tech mergers and acquisitions trends suggest that the market is unlikely to slow down in 2016. New Report: Marketing Automation Held Back By Budget, Data Management, And Lack of Time Marketing Land Based on survey responses from 400 U.S.-based marketing and sales professionals, the report from India-based IT/data management shop Openprise indicates that ease-of-use and quality of tools aren't the biggest obstacles. Profitability in a time of diaspora Channelnomics Forrester discusses the challenges partners face when it comes to the ease of doing business with vendors. The Fourth Industrial Revolution Might Cost You Your Job MediaPost This very anti-automation piece blames this “fourth industrial revolution” for killing job growth in Art, Design, Sports and Media. IAB Launches Data Center of Excellence to Ensure ‘Big Data’ Meets Its Promise for Marketers and Commitments to Consumers Press Release The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the launch of the IAB Data Center of Excellence, a new independently funded unit within IAB, founded to expand existing IAB resources and drive the “data agenda” for the digital media, marketing, and advertising industry. The Data Center’s mission will be to help advertisers and marketers operationalize their data assets while maintaining quality, transparency, accountability, and consumer protection. Why the ad industry will never win the war on ad blockers CIO The head of the Interactive Advertising Bureau came out swinging against ad blockers last week. Instead of even attempting to fairly distribute blame for the chaotic state of the ad industry, the executive pointed his finger everywhere else but at IAB members. Internet advertising industry chief: Adblock Plus is an 'unethical, immoral, mendacious coven of techie wannabes' Business Insider President and CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Randall Rothenberg used the opening keynote speech at the IAB summit to accuse Adblock Plus of being an "unethical, immoral, mendacious coven of techie wannabes" and an "old-fashioned extortion racket."

By: Mike Tomita Posted: February 19, 2016 | Digital Marketing Return on investment (ROI) is an important part of digital marketing (and  really, almost every part of marketing)—it tells you whether you’re getting your money’s worth from your marketing campaigns. And if you’re not, it’s critical to get to the bottom of it, and understand why so you can learn how to improve your campaigns. But first, you need to understand how you can effectively measure the ROI of digital advertising. The most instinctive way to measure digital advertising ROI is to track metrics that tie directly to revenue and profit (think conversions, opportunities, etc.). While it sounds great on paper, in the real world, this oversimplified view can paint an inaccurate picture of your ROI, especially if your product is sold at a low price per unit. Big picture measurement often factors in soft metrics—things like brand impressions, impressions, website visitors, and downloads—which help tell a more complete story. Here’s how to measure ROI using soft metrics for three popular digital advertisements—mobile video ads, native advertising, and programmatic advertising: 1. Mobile Video Ads Mobile video advertising can be more effective than regular web video advertising or even television advertising. This is because mobile is a much more intimate medium—it’s less of a shared experience and has fewer distractions. When done well, mobile video ads provide helpful information that drives traffic to your website, increases brand awareness, and is valuable enough for social sharing. Home improvement retailer Lowe’s recently demonstrated the value of mobile video ads with their #lowesfixinsix campaign on the popular video app Vine. The quick tips are fun and informative—and over 35,000 of their followers choose to have their ads in their feeds. Measuring the ROI of Mobile Video Advertising When evaluating the success of your mobile video advertising, take these metrics into account: Brand awareness: Measure brand awareness by looking at your direct traffic numbers (hits that come from viewers typing the URL directly into their search bar), the number of people who searched for your video by its name or hashtag, the number of clicks that came from referrals, and the number of social media shares and mentions. You can also find current search data on your brand name by using a tool like Google Trends. Purchase influence: Did your ad lead to an increase in sales? Look at the first-touch and multi-touch attribution that was generated by your video or video program for a look at the ROI but for a larger picture, look at the amount of traffic generated by your campaign and compare it to your sales numbers—including the numbers before and after the campaign launched. Accessibility: Track the placement of your ads and test them to make sure they are viewable on all devices and that they are not hidden on the page. This ensures people actually have access to your ads. Mind share: While you have no way of measuring how often people discuss your brand with friends over coffee, you can get a good idea how often people are talking about it by looking at the comments and shares on your mobile videos. A successful mobile video ad will have both. 2. Native Advertising Effective native advertising fits seamlessly into the organic content of the sites that carry them. Also known as an “advertorial,” this type of advertisement provides useful information to readers in a format that resembles non-paid articles on the website. Native advertising can be found in hard copies and online newspapers and magazines, but it’s also seen on social media sites such as Facebook.IBM pays to publish their own content on the Forbes platform as IBMVoice. Their paid content looks and feels like an article on the site, but it’s clear that it’s marketing content. In fact, native ads that look too much like unbranded content can actually hurt your campaign and reputation if you leave readers feeling duped. Measuring the ROI of Native AdvertisingMeasuring the ROI of native advertising can be challenge for many marketers. It’s measured primarily by click-throughs, which is an important factor to consider, but other measurements are also critical in understanding the full picture of its performance: Customer acquisition: How many click-throughs via native advertising led to acquiring information that you can nurture toward conversion? To measure this, divide the total number of click-throughs by the number of people who submitted contact information (for example, by signing up for your newsletter). This number should be higher in connection with a native advertising campaign. Reputation: Does the information presented in your native ad help develop the company as a trusted expert or thought leader? Does it increase the number of people turning to the brand’s website for advice? Look at the number of comments and queries you receive in connection to your ad, as well as increased traffic. Brand recognition: Do more people recognize your brand as a result of the native advertising? To determine this, look at your website analytics to find the number of hits that come in from your native advertising directly, and then use Google Trends to see if the number of people searching for your brand name is increasing. Mind share: Are people sharing your content on social media? Are they talking about it? You can usually find the number of social media shares right on the content page. 3. Programmatic Advertising Programmatic advertising is software-created, specifically-targeted advertising. You probably see this type of advertising many times a day online—they’re often displayed as banner or sidebar ads that change whenever you refresh your page.  A huge amount of marketing dollars go into programmatic advertising. In fact, eMarketer reports that it expects to see programmatic ad spend reach $20.41 billion this year. This type of advertising is automated—created directly, without an ad salesperson or contracts, and is based on your goals. The biggest advantage of programmatic advertising is that it can be altered to best meet your company’s needs, based on the demographics, location, and behavior of your target audience.Diesel, a popular fashion brand, included programmatic ads as part of their multi-channel campaign last fall. Their Shazam ads, for example, included copy specifically designed for the targeted setting. When Shazam couldn’t recognize a song, the Diesel ad empathized with the user. Measuring the ROI of Programmatic AdvertisingBecause of its versatility and flexibility, programmatic advertising metrics must be measured frequently to be effective. While things like click-throughs and mind share are important your measurements should focus on areas such as: Recognition and reputation: Search for your brand name on social media and keep track of the number of mentions, as well as whether the mentions are positive or negative. Your recognition should increase the longer your programmatic ads run. Website traffic numbers: As your brand becomes more recognized, you should see an increase in traffic, from people who come directly to your site by typing in your URL as well as following your ad. Hard metrics are without a doubt important for proving and improving ROI (and demonstrating the value of your activities and spend to the C-level), but it’s critical to track vanity metrics in addition to ROI in order to have a comprehensive view of how your ads are doing. As your brand pushes marketing boundaries into new strategies—like mobile video ads, native advertising, and programmatic ads—make sure you are measuring ROI beyond just revenue impact so your whole team can continue to drive engagement and improve sales.

this is an example doc used in [this post] that shows how to create successful nurture programs LNA: Install Snippet Email (EXAMPLE) Overview An email educating and encouraging new leads to install the snippet in the Optimizely product. Hypothesis By sending an email with a humorous subject line about installing the snippet, users will be more likely to open the email than if they are sent a serious subject line. Baseline Conversion Out of all leads that were delivered our "Snippet Install Email" (5,000), 35% of them opened the email (1750). Goal Increase create account conversion by 7% Baseline conversion = 4,900 leads per variation Audience New leads that created a self-serve Optimizely account Content Cadence: 1x week to new leads Notes

By: Chris Savage Posted: March 10, 2016 | Modern Marketing When we started Wistia in 2006, all of our marketing was centered around our video hosting product. We thought we were doing all the right things—demos over the phone, a PR firm, a “business-like” team page—so we didn’t understand why we had no money and only 5 employees. Then one day our filmmaker friend Chris Lavigne came by the office. He looked around, and then he proposed an idea so obvious and perfect I can’t believe I was ever skeptical of it: since Wistia is a video hosting company, why not use video in your actual marketing? I was a filmmaker myself before Wistia, but when Chris said this I was just confused. We already had a screencast of our product on our homepage. I didn’t understand what making more videos was supposed to add. We were marketing to other businesses, not putting together a reel, but Chris was our friend and he offered to make the video himself. So we agreed to let him do his thing. The video he made was pretty unconventional, at least for the time, because it wasn’t about our product at all: it was about the Wistia team goofing around on an ordinary day in the office, working hard but having fun doing it. And to our surprise, people loved it. The video was a huge success, which taught us an unexpected lesson—that people would respond to what we made if it demonstrated the fact that we actually care, heart and soul, about what video can do. This was one of the single most important shifts in mindset that had to happen in order for us to succeed. Hundreds of videos later, we’re profitable, with a much bigger team and customer base. And we owe it all to shutting up about our product and focusing on our mission of empowering everybody to get more out of video—what we now call mission-based marketing. But it didn’t happen overnight. Here’s how we aligned our marketing to a mission, and how you can do the same thing with your team: 1. Write Down How You Want to Change the World We burned through a lot of different missions before one of them stuck. Now, our mission is the compass we use to direct every single piece of content we produce. Everything supports that mission. Our early iterations were way too focused on our product and company goals because we thought a mission was about summing up how you worked and what you wanted. What we finally did was write down the things we valued the most about working at Wistia. We shared these with our team, got feedback, and together crafted a final draft. And it’s only by bringing all these people together that you really can get what you need: a mission that’s bigger than you and your company. So start marketing with a purpose: Write down the things that you value most about your work Share the values with your team and solicit feedback so they represent everyone Use this pool of shared values to work toward a cohesive mission statement. 2. Ask Your Customers What They Want to Achieve Imagine what your company looks like from your customer’s perspective. Essentially, you are a tool that they’re using to succeed at some bigger project, be it in business or life. Your tool is maybe just a small percentage—say 3%—of that project. The other 97% is what your marketing should be all about.To figure out what that 97% is, email and call your customers. Set up a forum or subreddit and ask questions there. Send out surveys. If you reach out for ideas often, you’ll gradually build a customer-company culture where the lines of communication are more open, and you’ll see more ideas emerge organically.Here are a few ways you can learn what your customers want to accomplish: Use a Google Forms survey to collect mass responses. It’s a very basic tool, and free, but it works really well to distribute surveys and collect responses. Set up a community if you don’t have one. You can use something as simple as a subreddit. You just need a place where you can talk informally with your users about the kinds of content they want. Go back to basics and call your customers. Ask them directly what they want to accomplish, and you’ll find that people can be a lot more candid and talkative over the phone. 3. Adjust Your Team’s Risk-Taking Threshold Mission-based marketing requires creativity, and creative ideas are fragile. Both extroverted and introverted people can get very shy when they have an idea for something that’s out of the box because they’re afraid of saying the wrong thing or being judged.We start ideation meetings by writing “Don’t hold back” on a whiteboard, especially when people clearly have ideas but are hesitant to express them. Then, we’ll just throw out the craziest idea we can think of that still fulfills our mission, something just really outlandish. After the baseline is adjusted, everyone in the room feels a little freer to speak their mind. Case in point: this is how the announcement of ourEnterprise plan turned into a full-fledged parade.Create an open culture around creativity using the same method we did: Divide meetings into ideation, decision-making, and execution so you can think of the craziest possible ideas without having to imagine how to do them. Start ideation meetings by throwing off the baseline, then let the conversation guide you toward a solution that’s both creative and doable. Write down without judgment every idea that your team generates. You can figure out which ones make sense later. 4. Make Your Content-Creation Process Transparent and Accessible We work really hard to encourage a total content culture at Wistia. Everyone who works here is part of the mission, so everyone should be part of our mission-based marketing.To open content creation up to everyone, we documented our process. Instead of just blazing through everything like we usually did, we slowed down. We got dry-erase markers, drew it out on a wall, and asked questions about each step to figure out how and why it was in there. When we had it down pat, we put it in a Google Doc and opened it up to the team. Then, we set up a Trello board just for content ideas and invited everyone to participate. If you do this, you’re going to find that your idea board fills up incredibly fast. There’s only so much you can say about your product, but when you start to orient your content around your mission, the possibilities become endless.Try out this method out with your team: Map out your process in dry-erase so you can edit on the fly and display it in a central location. Transcribe the complete process into a Google Doc so your whole team can see and use it. Set up Trello boards to document the stages each project is in (ideation, drafting, revision, submitted, etc). Live And Breathe Your Mission Great marketing demonstrates how passionate you are about the mission you’re trying to help your customers achieve. It doesn’t matter if your company is in a “boring” field (I mean, we do video hosting for businesses!)—showing heart still matters. There’s a lot of companies out there that don’t think about this stuff at all, but this is really how you differentiate yourself from the pack. Get your team together and write your mission down, then talk to your customers about it. Democratize and make transparent your team’s content-creation process, then unleash its creativity by encouraging crazy ideas. What other steps have you taken to align your marketing around your company’s mission? Share them in the comments below.