Social media is very important nowadays. According to a research done by Pew Research Internet Project, the following statistics was found. They are: 74% of online adults use social networking sites, 19% of online adults use Twitter, 71% of online adults use Facebook and 21% use Pinterest. So, businesses must leverage social media. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/leverage-social-media

A recent 2014 North American Call Center Survey has revealed that approximately 78 percent of today’s call centers are premised-based and 70 percent considering a move to the cloud. It was further found that 52% of consumers utilize three or four channel platforms (phone, email, video, text, chat, social media) when looking for customer care. In recent studies it was found that 67% of customers prefer self-service over speaking to a live representative. Salesforce and Forrester Research group found “Personalizing Customer Service Interactions” is among the top key trends facing customer service organizations. Robert Killory (Chief Customer Officer, 3CLogic), writes in his article about the top customer service trends facing contact centers for 2015. Read more at: http://www.callcentertimes.com/Home/tabid/37/ctl/NewsArticle/mid/395/CategoryID/1/NewsID/899/Default.aspx

According to PwC's Sixth Annual Digital IQ Survey, it was found that collecting, analyzing, and leveraging customer data is a concern for 72% of business organizations, just 44% have taken action to address it. Customer data comes from many sources, like websites, email, social media, mobile, customer service, data warehouses, and more. Collecting, analyzing and using these customer data is a challenge. Marketers should leverage data effectively. Data management and analytics enable marketers to use data effectively.  Businesses need to gain competitive advantage by taking strategic decisions with customer insights. Further, self-learning marketing automation technologies combined with CRM tools allow marketers to set up relevant promotions or information to customers. Read more at: http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/digital-marketing-data/the-right-path-to-big-data/1327

In today’s world, it is important to grab the attention of potential customers and using videos is one of the ways to grab attention of customers. One can tracking video viewing activities of prospects, and thus can gain better insight into who are leads and thereby increase conversion velocity. Tyler Lessard (CMO of Vidyard, a video marketing platform), writes in this article about what to expect from video marketing in 2015. Read more at: : http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2014/26719/2015-will-be-the-year-of-video-marketing

According to a research by Formstack, it was found that 88% of marketers know that a customized web experience can boost their ROI, but only 6% plan with personalization in mind. They also found that personalized emails boast 25% higher open rates and 51% higher click rates. Veronica Maria Jarski (Opinions editor and a senior writer at MarketingProfs), writes in her article about why businesses should include personalized marketing in 2015. Read more at: http://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2015/26743/why-personalized-marketing-will-dominate-in-2015-infographic

Proximity marketing tools are an innovative new method for retailers to understand the needs and wants of their customers, as well as buying patterns. In retail technology space it was seen that there has been an increase in footfall in-store and ROI. With the advancement of technology, it will be seen that retailers will create proximity marketing networks that they can roll out across their stores. Some of these networks are private - communicating to their own customers only - whereas some of these networks are open, i.e. in a shopping center environment. Read more at: http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/digital-marketing-features/predictions-for-proximity-marketing-2015/1310

According to the Radicati Group’s Email Statistics Report, 2013-2017, it was found that there were 3.9 billion email accounts in 2013, which is set to rise to over 4.9 billion email accounts by the end of 2017 and in a recent research, it was also found that one in every six emails sent by brands are lost before they even reach their intended recipient. Mark Ash (Director of Teradata Interactive), writes in his article about ten ways to avoid commercial email censorship. Read more at: http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/digital-marketing-lead-generation/ten-ways-to-avoid-commercial-email-censorship/1315

Nowadays, images overlaid with text— called Internet memes—are a popular way for brands to reach their audiences. A study has shown that our brains are more efficient at processing images than words. It was also found that 75% of Americans have used emotive to communicate to others. Elizabeth Victor (brand adviser for iSentia, a media monitoring, analysis, and Intelligence Company), writes in her article about how to take advantage in marketing in the age of images. Read more at:  http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2014/26678/how-to-use-internet-memes-to-market-your-content-your-products-and-your-brand

Cause marketing is a fresh approach in marketing. It has become important because it increases trust and loyalty from customers, which in turn is helping in more sales. According to a 2013 corporate social responsibility study done by Cone Communications and Echo Global, it was found that 91% of global consumers are likely to switch brands to one associated with a good cause given comparable price and quality. To know more, follow Jim Belosic (CEO, ShortStack.com)’s article link: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/3-ways-cause-marketing-can-help-your-brand

Consumers see social media platform as more than an advertising platform. So, it has become one of the ways to create customer loyalty and in turn creates a community through social media and PR. According to Social Habit, 32% of social customers expect a direct online answer within 30 minutes and 42% expect a response within one hour. Nowadays consumer needs are getting higher and brands have to adapt to this social change. Brand loyalty is important as consumers want to be listened to. Brands should also have an online presence, create loyalty schemes, and recognize that their target markets come first. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/why-social-media-and-online-presence-important-brand-loyalty

According to Experian’s Data Advantage Report it was found that more than 99 percent of organizations had a plan, but 94 percent still had data errors. The reason for this is bad data quality. Data quality initiatives require investment. Cutting costs is not a solution. The report also found that 27 per cent of businesses are using manual database editing to tackle data quality. But, if data quality software is used, it automatically catches new data problems at the input stage before they are dedicated to a customer relationship management system (CRM). It also detect and remove the duplicates that already exist. This in turn cut down on the manual import and export operations and business moves towards a solution. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/how-to-win-the-crm-data-quality-battle-64966

According to a recent report from VWO, it was found that 55% of online shoppers say reviews from other shoppers are an important factor that influences their ultimate decision to buy or not to buy and 23% of consumers say they do not think reviews from others are important, and 22% are indifferent about the issue. 28% of respondents say they sometimes abandon their online shopping carts because of unexpected shipping costs and 23% don't purchase when forced to sign up for an account. Read more at: http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2014/26684/what-motivates-consumers-to-complete-e-commerce-purchases

In a study by IAB UK Mobile ad, it was found that 52% of traffic to retail websites originates from mobile. eMarketer also said that this year, mobile ad spend may exceed traditional media such as newspapers, magazines and radio for the first time. So, mobile advertising and mobile device adoption rate is growing at a remarkable rate. Technology is also helping the mobile advertising infrastructure. Programmatic mobile advertising, referred to as Real-time Bidding (RTB), is providing answers to the question of how to target audiences in such a huge and complex environment.  To know more, follow Stephen Upstone (CEO and Founder of LoopMe)’s article link: http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/mobile-digital-marketing/forget-the-year-this-is-the-age-of-mobile-advertising/1286

Digital advertising is growing at a rapid space. Sarah Lawson Johnston (Managing Director Europe at Mediaocean), writes in her article about the trends in digital advertising  for the year 2015. They are: Multi-touch Attribution, Native advertising and Viewability. We can expect to have a significant effect on digital ad efficacy and accountability. To know more, follow:  http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/digital-marketing-advertising/digital-advertising-industry-predictions-for-2015/1281

Advertisers rely on data when buying inventory in order to find out more about audiences and also they try to analyze their campaign messages. So, programmatic ad trading has become important. It is defined as automating the process of buying and selling digital media and advertising by using software. Programmatic trading has ensured that Data Management Platforms (DMP) software help marketers and publishers to employ the information they hold about users more effectively and enables publishers to learn about their audience – their likes and dislikes. The advantages of DPM goes beyond advertising, into content personalization, email, CRM. Read more at:  http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/digital-marketing-data/data-management-platforms-beyond-advertising/1276

Gartner research forestalls that the customer relationship management (CRM) market will be worth $36.4 billion by 2017 because staying in touch with customers is the key for surviving in any business. The main purpose of a CRM solution is to provide any business with data that helps you to take the best decision and build relationships that establish strong customer loyalty. To do that, it’s important to track all types of interactions with your customers. Jeff Orloff (content developer for an e-mail security awareness company) in his article writes about some important customer touch points that are commonly tracked. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/3-customer-touch-points-you-arent-tracking-in-your-crm-system-64884

A Mobile CRM solution can be an effective way to bridge the gap between management's need for customer data and freeing up sales team members to focus on the customer. Businesses must focus on capturing real time information about customers and their activities, using mobile devices. So, businesses must value on mobile sales solutions. Businesses must integrate mobile CRM with existing systems. To know more, follow: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/4-ways-to-get-more-value-from-crm-through-mobile-64915

The customer service team uses tools such as social media monitoring, engagement dashboards, CRM integration, personalized routing, supervisor visibility, and access to back-end systems. Marketing team uses social media monitoring and engagement dashboards, but it focuses on content creation, and analytics. To know more about how marketing and customer service contribute to the customer experience, follow Veronica Maria Jarski (Opinions editor and a senior writer at MarketingProfs)’s article link:  : http://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2014/26637/how-marketing-and-customer-service-approach-customer-engagement-infographic

According to a recent report from Message Systems, it was found that consumers prefer to receive marketing messages, special offers, and coupons via email. It was also found that for non-emergency customer service issues, email is the most preferred. Phone conversations are the next most popular means for non-emergency customer service issues which is preferred by 29% followed by online chat (9%) and social media (7%). Read more at: http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2014/26627/how-consumers-prefer-to-receive-marketing-messages

Online presence is a must for every business nowadays. So, social media has become very important. According to Statista, there are about 1.79 billion users in social media in 2014 and it is projected to reach about 2.44 billion by 2018. William Johnson (Web Designer) writes in this article about the emerging trends in social media. These trends are: Social Media Marketing to Go Mobile, Use of Images, Marketing through Short Videos to Become Popular, Viral Marketing to Become Attractive, Companies to Use Real-time Marketing to Serve Customers, and LinkedIn and Instagram to Become the Most Important Platforms. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/top-7-anticipated-social-media-trends-2015