As 2019 winds down, and as we get ready to welcome a new decade, biohacking, “DIY biology”, transhumanism, genetic engineering, and biotechnology are exploding in interest, and more people than ever are learning how they can actually alter the micro- to affect change at the macro. They want to connect the minutiae, the details — the data — with the ultimate outward expression to create a desired result. Ethical debates aside, here, we’re seeing something of a parallel movement happening in marketing. Channel managers are finding a growing need to articulate how their day-to-day activities (and the numbers they’re driving) are impacting “the organism” (the organization). They know that without a mechanism to connect engagement, vanity metrics, and all the proverbial data dots (what leaders want to see and what their team wants to prove but isn’t always able to), a divide between marketers and the C-Suite will remain. So, how do we take things like open rates, web traffic, shopping carts, and click-through rates —  which are mostly representative of the process part of your work — and tie ’em to revenue growth and customer retention? One way is by leveraging technology that can do it for us. Benchmarketing is inherently focused on these kinds of KPIs, and goes beyond the traditional benchmarking reports that you might generally rely on — the ones that only measure and track the aforementioned operational metrics.

Marketer + Machine

Benchmarketing Series: The DNA of a Successful Marketing Campaign

A strategic dashboard should help you navigate complexities involved in reporting, analytics, and understanding customer data. It should provide you with insights and data that reinforce marketing’s value to the organization and help you prove your impact on the bottom line. In fact, Emarsys was just recognized as a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Cross-Channel Campaign Management, Q4 2019. We received the highest scores possible in 22 criteria, including ‘Reports and Dashboard.’ Benchmarketing.io is a new kind of benchmarking tool designed for strategic marketers, NOT just channel managers. Unlike other benchmarking tools that only give you access to operational and channel-specific KPIs, this dashboard gives you access to the strategic KPIs that make an immediate impact on your business.

Benchmarketing Series: Why Benchmarketing Requires a Strategic Dashboard & Dynamic Reporting

We’re often fighting an uphill battle when it comes to proving our worth as a marketing organization. But marketing doesn’t have to be like this. With all of the tools and data available to us, it’s time for marketers to make a change... to leave behind our old way of doing things — of looking at and reporting on the same metrics over and over again — and start showing our organizations that we should be considered one of the most strategic assets in the business. How can we do this? Marketers need to shift from focusing only on the channel-specific, operational KPIs we’ve used for so long and instead emphasize strategic KPIs that actually impact our businesses. It’s time for our industry to go from benchmarking to benchmarketing. What does this mean? In short: benchmark marketing. The idea behind benchmarketing is to take the benchmark reports we all know and love one step further. We should be using strategic KPIs that go beyond operational and channel-specific metrics and give us a better understanding of how marketing is actually impacting the business. What if you could tie those day-to-day metrics to revenue, customer growth and retention rate? Don't forget to check out benchmarketing.io for more information. 

Benchmarketing Series: Trailer

Technology. AI. Software. Vendors. Providers. Research. Adoption. Implementation. Customer Experiences. Expectations. Investment. Resources. BLEH! From fear of the unknown to tech overload to widespread confusion – or worse, stagnation – there’s a myriad of reasons marketers put off acquiring new technology. New tech adoption is far from easy or enjoyable – most marketers who have been through it would concur… and for good reason. How are marketing teams supposed to sort through the weeds to distinguish pretenders from contenders? And, if it’s AI you want, how do you distinguish from those who say they have AI vs. those who have real AI? It seems like the hype, promises, and expectations have made a lot of marketers gun-shy, untrusting, and disgruntled in the wake of slippery software vendors who enticed them with bold claims and deceitful ploys and then sold them a supposed silver bullet that ultimately under-delivered. Alex Timlin  joins the program to share his insights on how For all the reasons decision makers put off choosing new tech, the alternative is even worse. Do nothing and lag behind. Like it or not, marketing is changing, and without a constant eye on technological improvement, the job of the marketer is only going to get harder. It’s only by bringing tech adoption challenges into our  awareness that we can begin to remedy issues that prevent us from carrying innovation forward.

Time to Value Series: Has Martech Adoption Gotten Out of Hand?

Whether you’re investing in a new marketing solution, looking at potentially migrating to a new platform/vendor, or adding new point tools to your existing stack, it can be challenging to understand how, exactly, this new ‘thing’ is going to drive value. Alex Timlin, VP of E-commerce and Retail Vertical at Emarsys illuminates an often neglected aspect of new tech adoption — time to value. In this episode, you’ll learn: - How turnkey tactics and embedded knowledge impact time to value - Tips for managing and transferring data to new tools or tech - How to estimate how long it will take before you can expect value with new tech - Key metrics to focus on improving value - Top performing brands that have seen quick time to value The remedy to combat long, drawn-out time-to-value schedules lies in turnkey solutions with embedded industry knowledge — which is a new approach for marketers as well as a paradigm shift in how we think about driving value with tech.

Time to Value Series: How Does Data Drive Shorter TTV for E-Commerce and Retail?

On average, it takes 90 days or more to activate marketing strategies using new technology. A financial quarter contains, on average, 66 days. So, marketers have just 66 days to impact business results and report back on success. Time is, by far and somewhat silently, the most critical aspect that marketers have to grapple with. It has a profound impact on business value that few marketers have considered up until now. The quicker speed-to-market we can achieve, the more value we can bring in shorter time to our customers… all leading to expedited revenue growth. In order to achieve quicker time-to-value, marketers need turnkey solutions with embedded business knowledge that dramatically reduces the time and resources that need to be put into it up front.

Time to Value Series: Why TTV Matters So Much

Welcome to the next series of Marketer + Machine where we will explore an often neglected topic: time-to-value. That is, how long you have to wait to get through all the setup  and implementation before you actually start driving results with your tech. The challenge many marketers are facing is trying to accomplish what they need to with a very quick speed-to-market. Though many tech vendors have great solutions and powerful platforms, when you look at the effort it’s going to take to get up and running, it can take sometimes a year or more — not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars! The key is to look for software solutions that maximize the ability (right out of the box) to deliver what you need without tremendous effort. Marketing needs turnkey solutions with embedded business knowledge that dramatically reduces the time and resources that need to be put into it up front. The quicker you get your time to value completed, the more sales/revenue you’ll see, and what’s perhaps most important is that a quicker time to value gives you a leg up on the competition. If you take too long, your competitors can get their foot in the door and win your customers away from you. Check out our Time to Value Whitepaper here: http://bit.ly/emarsys-ttv 

Time to Value Series: Trailer

With AI, marketers are able to predict dozens of metrics like CLV, likelihood to purchase, and overall revenue. It gives us the ability to unlock new dimensions of our database, to go from being reactive to being proactive, and to predict the future. They’re getting in front of customers and automating the execution of next-best offers, 1-to-1 content, individualized incentives, and more. But the most exciting part of AI for e-commerce and retail marketers is its ability to calculate the likelihood of an action happening or not happening. You can also define opportunities within repeat segments, lapsing segments, churning segments, and more to fill revenue gaps. In this episode, we take a look at what the marketing matrix is, how AI helps escape it, and numerous use cases and examples that demonstrate how it’s driving real world value. Make sure you also explore how AI can help predict dozens of marketing metrics and unlock new dimensions of your database - check out our white paper here: http://bit.ly/ai-whitepaper

AI Series: Using AI to Escape the Marketing Matrix

In Part I of this AI series, Raj Balasundaram, SVP of Artificial Intelligence at Emarsys, introduced the concept of AI. In this episode, he goes a level deeper and describes how predictive intelligence works, shares specific use cases, and even gets into the ethical implications of using AI. In this episode, you’ll learn three core things related to AI: How marketers are going from reactive to proactive marketing with AI. For example, can you detect when certain customers are about to fall off the wagon - and are you treating them differently, with offers aimed to convert them based on their behavior? How to identify buying patterns down to the individual, and determine likelihood to churn on a 1-to-1 level, then automate the communication, content, and incentives that should follow that insight. How leading retailers like BrandAlley were able to 4x their revenue in half the time of a normal campaign, all by using AI. Another Emarsys client, CityBeach uses AI to connect in-store purchases to the online ecosystem. The future of AI and the ethics and biases that come with it. Check out how AI can help you predict dozens of marketing metrics and unlock new dimensions of your database - check out our white paper here: http://bit.ly/ai-whitepaper

AI Series: Using AI to Go from Reactive to Proactive Marketing - Use Cases & The Future

Raj Balasundaram, SVP of Artificial Intelligence at Emarsys, is leading industry rhetoric about the vast benefits of AI for e-commerce and retail. In this episode, Raj explains why there’s been so much hype around AI, unveils common misconceptions, and shares how we can partner with AI to do more proactive marketing. Listen in to learn how AI is: Helping marketers that use it uncover the who, what, when, and where behind all customer interactions Enabling the shift from reactive to proactive marketing Helping marketers use existing behavioral data to finally automate and scale personalized interactions to each customer. AI is impacting and redefining marketing in the modern era. It’s about time we learn how it can complement and augment our work and then start adopting it where it makes sense. Don't forget to check out how AI can help predict dozens of marketing metrics and unlock new dimensions of your database - check out our white paper here: http://bit.ly/ai-whitepaper

AI Series: The State of AI Marketing for B2C E-commerce

Companies like IBM, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google spearheaded what’s now become known as The Fourth Industrial Revolution — spurred by the evolution of artificial intelligence. 61% of marketers say artificial intelligence is the most important aspect of their data strategy. In this episode, we introduce several ways AI is impacting the retail and e-commerce space, and ways that AI is changing the marketing game in general, including: Managing customer relationships Helping organizations do more with their data More testing and piloting of use cases for marketing Make sure you also explore how AI can help predict dozens of marketing metrics and unlock new dimensions of your database - check out our white paper here: http://bit.ly/ai-whitepaper

AI Series: [Trailer] Using AI for Proactive Marketing

Key Takeaways: Kath Pay, a Top 50 Email Marketing influencer — and arguably the foremost email marketing personalization expert in the world — joins the show to talk about email marketing. As Kathwrote about, email delivers the goods. With more and more technology coming available — plus more intense pressure AND resource restraints — email marketers are more pressed and stressed than ever. But used to augment your strategy, technology plays a pivotal role and can help us use email at the core of our personalized marketing approaches. By measuring the right things, focusing on the customer experience instead of campaign-driven goals, and using tech to enhance (not control), email marketers can regain control. Full Shownotes: https://www.emarsys.com/resources/podcasts/email-personalized-marketing-kath-pay/ 

Personalization Series: Using Email as the Core of Your Personalized Marketing | Kath Pay

Key Takeaways: Personalization is about so much more than words — it's about the full experience you deliver to customers. It IS about the words, but also the visual experience through which that experience is created. Personalized, visual experiences are about right time messages, delivering this content to the right contact or customer, and ensuring that content is suited, specifically, for the device they're using at that moment. How might you be able to leverage augmented and virtual reality to enable consumers to fully experience your brand upon opening an email? By the way, email is more alive than ever before — and is rich with opportunity. Full Shownotes: https://www.emarsys.com/en/resources/podcasts/visual-experiences-vivek-sharma  

Personalization Series: Uniting Data & Creative | Vivek Sharma

Key Takeaways: As Jay explains, relevancy creates both time and attention. Marketers must understand that less is more — it’s about creating marketing that’s so good that people would pay for it. Data and technology are available to all of us to deliver exceptional experiences. Eventually, every one of your competitors will have great technology. It’s up to us to differentiate ourselves in the only way we can — better strategy. It’s about the wizard (marketer); not the wand (the software or tech stack). Personalization at scale has been the holy grail for a while, but being able to do it affordable has been the challenge. Now, we can get closer to being able to 1-to-1 marketing by relying on AI and machine learning.  Full Shownotes: https://www.emarsys.com/resources/podcasts/smart-marketing-about-help-not-hype-jay-baer/ 

Personalization Series: Smart Marketing is About Help Not Hype | Jay Baer

Key Takeaways: Personify XP learns from visitors' behavior onsite and then uses this to give individually personalized experiences to your visitors in real time. Because it is based on onsite behavior it is effective even where there is little or no data on your visitors, allowing it to truly target anonymous and first time visitors. How do we learn from our customer data in such a way as to create a personalized web experience? Especially for customers that we haven’t officially met yet? Listen in as Ben and Joshua explain how, exactly, Personify XP is able to create a more relevant web experience for anonymous visitors with whom a brand has no sales history.  Full Shownotes: https://www.emarsys.com/resources/podcasts/personalization-anonymous-visitors-personify-xp/ 

Personalization Series: The Secrets to Personalizing Your Website Experience | Ben Mercer & Joshua Scotton

On Marketer + Machine, you will get an in-depth look at the creative, strategic, and innovative ways marketing leaders from around the world are not only acquiring but also retaining customers in today’s uber-competitive marketplace. Each weekly episode features an interview with a marketing leader, as well as their actionable insights, innovative perspectives, and predictions for the future of marketing. We’ll learn how they are bridging the gap between the marketer and the machine to deliver more personalized, meaningful, and relevant customer experiences with a focus on the human elements of marketing, not on the technology. Key themes we’ll explore include AI marketing, personalization, omnichannel, marketing automation, marketing best practices, marketing technology, customer experience, ecommerce and retail marketing, and the future of marketing.

hubhopper

Marketer + Machine

hubhopper