Marketing

Customer churn is costing mid-market companies an average of $5.5 million per year. Retailers need to avoid the expensive mistakes that result in such disastrous churn. This presents a clamorous alarm to marketers. One solution to this costly predicament is to get sales teams to work effectively, an...

Many digital marketers spend too much on targeting an already loyal customer base rather than tapping into new streams. Dr. Jorge Barraza, professor of applied psychology at the University of Southern California, has a plan to help advertisers reach consumers that would not normally buy their produc...

INSIGHTS

Newslettering vs. Blogging

Newsletters have become popular over the last few years; and especially over the past year during you-know-what when in-person meetings were taboo. Many companies are trying to figure out how to best leverage them, and new software platforms make it increasingly easy to produce one or more. What int...

With most workers continuing to work remotely, CRM has become an important tool for managing relationship risk. Financial firms have to deal with market and operational risk, consumer retailers have to focus on supply chain risk, and all companies have to keep an eye on economic risk. Relationship r...

Personalization and automation, two of the hottest buzzwords in the lexicon of CRM practitioners, are all the rage for marketers these days. But only 14 percent of organizations are using artificial intelligence or machine language to automate their marketing campaigns. A survey by Rackspace Technol...

Commerce analysts do not see consumers shedding their newfound buying options in the wake of a post-pandemic marketplace. Concerns for health safety, social distancing, and remote working will remain priorities for many shoppers. Merchants who demonstrate that they are able to quickly get products t...

Google sent a shock wave through the advertising and publishing industries last year when it announced it planned to scrap third-party tracking cookies, which are an important tool for online marketers. Not to worry, the company announced Monday. It has a viable alternative in the wings. "FLoC" will...

INSIGHTS

Misunderstood Loyalty

Both marketing and loyalty had delayed starts in the CRM world, and both exhibited traits of confusion among those charged with their rollouts; strongly evidenced by a lack of specificity in the early applications that carried their badges. Loyalty is back in the spotlight now; as multiple vendors h...

If the ongoing struggles amid the pandemic have taught retailers anything, it is the need to automate their customer service experience. Customer experience automation is making the difference between hanging on until closing down and ensuring more returning customers.

VENDOR WATCH

Oracle Marketing

The emergency caused by the novel coronavirus is causing deep structural changes to how we do business. We don't sell or market the way we did before the virus, and it may be some time before we return to that model -- if indeed we ever do. Oracle's strategy centers around the CX Unity Customer Inte...

INSIGHTS

Salesforce Ups Its Marketing Game

Recent research shows that employees are well aligned with the directions and goals of their companies, and that they are competently led and respect their bosses; but the technologies they use leave a lot to be desired. This includes CRM, and too often the functionality that their currently install...

EXPERT ADVICE

Refocus Your Sales Strategy on the Phone Call

Getting a prospect on the line and talking to them directly matters. It's the ability to deliver the pitch with the right content, cadence, and care for your future clients' needs that makes a voice call so effective. It's not just salespeople who prefer a call -- 92 percent of all customer interact...

INSIGHTS

The Trail to the Platform

Some years ago, Marc Benioff told me he was not interested in developing back office apps that would compete with SAP and Oracle in the ERP and finance market. Many people, myself included, looked askance at that idea and wondered out loud how the company would continue to grow because, hey, there's...

Marketers at B2C companies realize that personalization is key to business, but they are having problems implementing personalization strategies, according to a recent survey by Adweek Intelligence in association with IBM Watson Advertising.

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