According to a recent research, 96% of B2B marketers say that data is regarded as “important” or “very important” within their marketing team and 90% of senior management feel the same way. A data strategy enables you to achieve business goals and a B2B data strategy provides the foundation for everything involving data, from whom you target through your marketing campaigns, to how you generate leads and increase sales. The data strategy should guide any organization and must have clear results, rather than a list of vague objectives. Suzanne Stock (the founder Directors of Marketscan) writes in her article about some steps that any organization can take to implement B2B data strategy. They are: Have clear-cut  aim, Carry out a data audit, and be consistent. Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/b2b-marketing/need-b2b-data-strategy-implement-one-01555070#kCkXyhGwW1laWRRS.97

Influencer marketing is very important in today’s business world. But, what is influencer marketing? It is when a particular company reaches out to key people in the industry and asks them to promote their product or service to their followers. There are different ways in which a brand can use influencer marketing. But, a company need to review whether it is worthwhile in terms of time and money. Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/marketing/influencer-marketing-worth-waste-01549023#MsVR5luWeIPxO1mE.97

Digital marketing is already skyrocketing worldwide. This up growing popularity in digital marketing is not only confided inside the business enterprise but also the job oriented learning process is also at a higher demand. Online certification training company Simplilearn has seen 7,000 people take its digital marketing course that was launched in 2014. Of that, 2,500 have come in just the past six months. Not only the online certification platforms but few business management courses including this digital marketing as one of their special papers. A Report says there will be 1.5 lakhs jobs opening between 2015 and 2016 and of this 55% of the demand comes just from the IT sector, while e-commerce and internet companies account for 10%. The ironical part is Indian market is only visualized a growth of 10%. Even large FMCG brands have joined e-commerce players in investing about 15-20% of their market budget towards the digital medium. Not only that these certification based learning process provides new entrepreneurs in this section and the figure is not very low, it’s around 25% of the total certified students on digital marketing.  

To read, follow: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/Digital-marketing-certifications-go-hot/articleshow/52069003.cms

The most dynamic aspect in market is Customer. It is important for businesses to focus on customer experience. For this, not only offline experience works but digital experience is also equally important. To retain your customer and to build the brand, businesses need to think strategically:

• ·         No need to worry about price, since 56% of customers pay more to get better customer services, and are willing to pay upto 30%.
• ·          Make your website more informative and easy to access. Website is more a communication channel and not only a showroom.
• ·         Social media is ruled by customers, not marketers. Marketers need to connect with customers through social media not only for promotion but to get feedback, to get back to them as earlier as possible.
• ·         Personalization is everything. Give more personalized experience to your prospects and customers.

 We can say that marketer need to give a perfect mix, either it is offline or online experience for the customers. To know more go through the given link: http://www.cmswire.com/customer-experience/create-memorable-customer-experiences-with-these-strategies/

The article talks about viral campaign or in marketing terms -  “Fire-Starting”, a new trend that has brought a paradigm shift from the tightly controlled brand stewardship to a entire new model that not only takes care of the dynamic environment but also follows a creative approach to capture opportunities that can stir demand. The article gives us new approach regarding  a perspective Chief Marketing officer has to adopt to start these Fire Starting campaigns across the key markets around the world. The approach discusses  four points in the form of: quicker reaction time to launch marketing campaign (Systematize Spontaneity), Second marketing is a creative industry if we are too risk averse it will be difficult to create a creative environment & campaigns , Budgeting accordingly and finally, choosing the right market at a right time for the right product . Read the article at :-  http://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2016/04/07/igniting-transformational-growth-four-lessons-in-fire-starting-for-cmos/#4690e0ba3656

If in 1 line I have to summarize the importance of article it will be, the solution is not limited to just analyzing a data, but also making sure it’s understandable & is communicated wisely to the end user for decision making. In the digital world huge amount of data is recorded every second, organization massive amount of time of monetary resources to analyse the data to churn out valuable information for decision making purpose, but unless & until these analysis are communicated in a right manner that could be understandable to the, otherwise its will be a sheer waste of valuable resources of organization. In this regard the article talks about “Info graphics” & the latest innovation in this field that can amalgamate business intelligence with narrative sciences.Read Full article :- http://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2016/01/21/why-management-dashboards-and-analytics-will-never-be-the-same-again/#4cce3b7c3963

Business intelligence provides you a greater customer insight and predictability on a product life cycle. But such digitalization has also some disputes as well. Most people around the world are tech savvy and surfing for a new product with better features. Analytics is growing at a fast pace and is creating a backlog. Day to day new product launch is providing zero visibility on upcoming product life cycle. Removing backlogs to smart productivity as per customer's likability is the new trend of business analytics. So there are challenges like cost, security and infrastructure, availability of skilled professionals. So overcoming challenges in BI and complete leverage on it is the new mantra for business empowerment.

To read, follow: http://www.business-standard.com/article/management/the-challenges-of-business-intelligence-116041000615_1.html

Success for any business depends on finding the right kind of content, pace, and interactions with followers and influencers. Nowadays, social media managers are developing recipes for their programs, but even so, something seems to be missing. So, we need to find out about the missing social media marketing element. In this article, we’ll explore 3 main reasons that interactive content and social marketing pair so nicely together. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/missing-ingredient-your-social-media-marketing-recipe

In this digital world at every touch point huge amount of data is being created in seconds that tells us about the needs & wants of consumer. The capability to extract valuable insights from the huge data poses a critical challenge for any modern organization. It has become an more & more important to efficiently & effectively ( both in terms time & labor) to  conduct data mining and extract valuable information out of big data to meet the strategic objective of an organization. In this paper MAS (multiple agent system) concept is being introduced to extract value data from CRM aspect. It also gives us a 3 point model to extract out potential valuable data to manage CRM optimally.Read full article at =_blankhttp://www.csroc.org.tw/journal/JOC26_4/JOC26-4-7.pdf

Retailers and most of the brick and mortar shops store their customer's data to understand their buying and transaction behavior. Some obscure data point that may help them become more knowledgeable about their customers. However, hidden from these in-store shopper analytics are all of the transactions their customers make outside their stores with competitors. In recent past, there are many switching of preference to online one. But this up growing online marketing basically picking the flaws of customers' real time analysis in case of brick and mortar shops. So it's high time to either integrate or dig into flawless marketing analytics.

To read, follow: http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesinsights/2016/04/27/the-hidden-danger-in-brick-and-mortar-customer-files-amazon-prime-members/#69beabd83681

Every financial and social interaction includes credit information, current & past borrowing behaviors and the ups & downs of a company's cash flow. Nowadays, business owner obtains an alternative loan based on data stream which is easier. Lenders look at many things when assessing the total collection of data from a business:

• Marketing data

• Omni-channel content creation and 

• Social media activity, content, shares and interactions

These factors will help in creating opportunities for short term loans and other types of business lending. 

For more read the article written by Sean Mallon ( Blogger) : http://www.smartdatacollective.com/seanmallonbizdaquk/398935/can-big-data-help-your-business-get-funding

Previously, CRM was unable to provide insightful data on customer behavior. The Internet of Things (a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects, animals or people that are provided with unique identifier) changed the scenario. The CRM providers have been inspired by IoT and they are successful to improve the customer relationship and meet customers' needs. This new trend is known as CRM of Things. It creates new marketing opportunities for businesses, and helps to improve customer service. Read more at written by Inside-CRM : http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/how-crm-can-benefit-from-the-internet-of-things-71582

The goal of customer-centric CRM is to improve customer value. Every customer is unique and their needs are also different. Organizations should customize their services and products according to customer needs, for gaining customer loyalty. A customer's contribution towards the net profit of a company determines the customer value. Customer loyalty is the most important thing for any company. Surveys will them to measure loyalty. Customer identification and prioritization is also important as it helps to identify customers that provide the most value. There should be well-planned strategies for customer acquisition and retention. Customer-centric CRM can improve revenue, decrease costs and enhance the customer experience of a company. For more read article written by Inside-CRM : http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/crm-and-the-concept-of-customer-centricity-71614

Some of the pros for executing data driven marketing efficiently are:-

1. Joint collaboration with IT department and marketing team is the key to achieve efficiency.

2. Hiring an industry analyst, professor or data scientist to review the data before publishing is necessary to check accuracy.

3. Planning the data collect and analysis before starting the project will help immensely.

4. It is important to focus on what the data means and what are its implications.

5. In order to increase exposures create strong relations with media and analyst (to find out what kind of data suits best for them) before publishing the data.

6. Company should decide whether they want to invest in product growth or data marketing.

7. If the company doesn't have data they don’t need to invest in costly data gathering procedures. Inexpensive tools are easily available.

To know more, read article by James A. Martin on the link : http://www.cio.com/article/3052442/marketing/how-to-do-data-driven-marketing-right.html?page=2

 Lee Sedol, The champion Go player, ranked 5th in the world, has beaten Google's AlphaGo artificial intelligence program in their fourth of five matches in Seoul, South Korea. AlphaGo is an ultra-complex abstract strategy game. This particular game requires a high level of human intuitions & higher perceptions and is slightly more difficult than chess. At the match when AlphaGo made a mistake, there was a question mark on its quick response ability.

Read more at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2016/03/14/human-go-champion-beats-google-alphago-ai-fourth-match/#655b1699292e 

Instagram is a social platform that offers a great opportunity for content marketers to increase their impact. Instagram has an engagement ratio that is eight times the average of the other four social platforms. Instagram continues to expand its ad platform. Recently, it was found that the growth in the number of brands posting video content on Instagram has outpaced growth in the number of brands posting photos (139% versus 91%). The average number of Instagram pictures posted per brand increased by 11%, while the average number of Instagram videos posted per brand grew 29%.

To read more, follow: http://www.business2community.com/instagram/4-instagram-tips-conquer-recent-shifts-digital-marketing-01459035#MFZ8abxaaPP5AZlf.97

In today's world, digital marketing is important for any business. But there are some measure that can be taken to maximize your business. Some precautionary measures that can be taken are as follows. Identify target audience and segment your marketing techniques accordingly.

1.       Digital marketing relies on “tactics” and “techniques” rather than on strategies and goals.

2.       Mobile search optimization and web app development is the most important parameter.

3.       SEO is the key method of success but not everything

4.       Figure out what your audience wants, identify where they are, and adopt a strategy to reach them.

5.       Use all available social media platform to reach your customer.

6.       Keep a close look on your followers and pay attention to their demands and satisfaction.

7.       Content marketing should form the core of any digital marketing strategy and link building.

8.       Manage a proper funding for digital marketing and should evaluate the real time results.

To know more, read: http://www.forbes.com/sites/neilpatel/2016/03/10/12-things-not-to-do-when-using-digital-marketing-in-2016/#68f176633ac2

Cover image courtesy: www.brickwin.com

Digital marketing needs continuous update. To sustain in this market, you need to channelize your business in complete digitalization. The main thing is to create an impression by launching an audio visual in the social networking site. Follow buzz marketing techniques to make it viral. Live streaming is the best way to gain market importance. With the rise of relationship marketing, there will be a rise in the cost of digital marketing. Marketing automation and virtual reality are the key process to enhance digital marketing. Moreover location search is gaining popularity than online presence.

To read, follow: http://www.forbes.com/sites/miketempleman/2016/03/08/your-guide-to-mobile-digital-marketing/#1de28212523c

Statistics is everything now days. We believe in numbers not in assumption. How digital marketing is so relevant these days and why can be answered by all these seven key statistical figures.

1. According to “Brandlive”, 44% out of 200 executives use live video streaming activities to generate leads. 25% of them has evidenced a progress.

2. The social network said 3 million businesses have now advertised on its platform, up from 2.5 million just six months ago. A year ago, Facebook had 2 million advertisers.

3. Internet connectivity in the smart phone section has increased by 200% in one year

4. BuzzFeed chief Jonah Peretti said the viral site now has 6 billion monthly content views, up from 100 million in 2012.

5. E reader market is streamline with fast pace of growth and apple finally joined the social media arena to increase brand salience

6. Lead generation techniques via digital media increased by 61%.

This all figures shows we are venturing into digital era.

To read, follow: To read, follow: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/9-interesting-digital-marketing-stats-past-week-169993