A well-known tractor maker company in US, is also a front-line innovator. This company has incorporated integrated software, network connectivity and data gathering sensors into tractor hardware. It is a perfect example of digital transformation in a much needed field, but yet, least expected of such transformation, till now. Digital transformation should be the heart of every business, whose sole purpose is to improve the existing business philosophies of the firm. Read more at:

http://www.cmswire.com/customer-experience/digital-transformation-your-key-to-survival/

A business plan is a written description of a business's future, a document that tells us what to do, how to do and also tells us where we stand.

And a marketing plan lays out the marketing strategies of the business. If efficiently executed, it brings benefits to the business. Megan Totka, Chief Editor, ChamberofCommerce.com, in her article at business2community.com, has shared five ways to lay the foundation for a solid marketing plan for a small business. They are:

1. Define your objectives.
2. Create a customer profile.
3. Figure out what triggers consumers to buy.
4. Establish a timeline.
5. Identify where customers find details about your products and/or services.

To understand them in detail, please visit the following link:

http://www.business2community.com/small-business/5-steps-to-a-small-business-marketing-plan-01236176

“Small Changes, Big Impacts” – that’s what hacks are according Kirsten Newbold-Knipp, Research Director at Gartner for Marketing Leaders.

In her article at Forbes, Kirsten has listed 10 digital marketing hacks, that you can implement immediately and see dynamic changes in your marketing activities like:

• Cost Savings
• Time Savings 
• Demonstrable ROI

Some of these digital marketing hacks that were voted the best at Gartner Digital Marketing Conference are:

• Be Your Customer
• Implement Interview Projects
• Fail Fests – Embrace Innovation & Failure
• Steal Ideas from Other Industries or Disciplines

To know more, please visit the following link and make few choices for your organization:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gartnergroup/2015/05/27/ten-digital-marketing-hacks/

Paul Mandeville, Chief Product Officer, QuickPivot, in his article at cmswire.com has given 3 C’s of modern retail marketing. They are:

• Context
• Content
• Customer Experience

Combining these three with big data, can do wonders for retailers. All they need to do is to clean up their organization’s database and find a common thread between these three C’s of retail marketing.

The retailers need to realize the power of these C’s for capturing their customers’ hearts. To know more, please visit the following link:

http://cmswire.com/digital-marketing/the-3-cs-of-modern-retail-marketing/

In an age, where a large proportion of email opens are done via mobile devices, marketers should consider responsive design, which allows them to control the email display, according to the size of the viewer's screen, adding flexibility to the content display of the mail. Email marketing solution providers are there to help. Pre-send testing is important, which makes sure that the messages look as good as desired across all devices ranging from tablets, mobile phones and desktops. To know more, please follow the article by Akin Arikan (Contributing Author) at:http://www.cmswire.com/cms/digital-marketing/the-age-of-mobile-moves-from-static-to-dynamic-029255.php

"Your strategies and budget on business technology agenda-technologies, systems, and processes to win, serve and retain customers"- Kyle McNabb (Vice President of Research Strategy at Forrester Research). In the age of customer era, all B2C organizations need to find ways to meet the needs of the customers.  They are also forming customer-obsessed operating model which focuses on customer loyalty, innovation and growth.

In his article “Building A Customer-Obsessed Operating Model,” suggested some ways to make a customer obsessed operating model:
• Investment in new skills like analytics and big data.
• Rethink your process and try to apply agile in your entire organization.
• Re-engineer your systems.
• Modify governance.
• Transformation of organizational culture into more customer-oriented culture.
Read more at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/forrester/2015/05/26/building-a-customer-obsessed-operating-model/

Thanks to enhanced campaigns, the role of paid search has been changing. Paid search helps to expand company's footprint on a search engine result pages and increases visibility as consumers often cast their eye towards the largest visual element when we go through a website. With new technology and devices like laptops, tablets and smartphones marketers must plan ads in a way that it reaches the consumers in the search context that the they prefer. Users set ads to appear according to three general events:  

• The time of day when the customer conducts a search       
• The device type on which the consumer is accessing the search     
• The location in which the ad is served 

The benefit is streamlining campaign so that ads that used to require separate campaigns, can now be handled in a single campaign. Marketers can increase campaign bids during the times of day when customers are more likely to search for a product. Enhanced campaigns has not only benefitted marketers but also the customer as their convenience is taken into account. Read more at: 

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/analytics/maximizing-your-enhanced-marketing-campaigns-029244.php 

According to a 2014 study, “88 percent of executives have begun a digital transformation at their company, but only 25 percent say they have completely mapped out the digital customer experience. A big part of the problem is that senior executives don’t know where to start.”

The impact of digital revolution has been huge. But, what all companies want is to embrace this impact and emerge as leaders of their field. They want to easily adapt to these changes like HMV did when the digital era of music challenged its business.

Joerg Niessing, INSEAD Affiliate Professor of Marketing, in his article at knowledge.insead.edu, has listed out three important principles that companies should keep in mind while mapping out digital customer experience. They are:

• Customer Orientation
• Customer Segmentation
• Integrated Branding at every Consumer Touchpoint

Although digitalization has changed the way we live and work. But, the golden rule of marketing still works nevertheless i.e. Be Customer Centric. Keep this mind along with the above mentioned principles; you may get a solution to this changing marketing scenario.

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://knowledge.insead.edu/blog/insead-blog/what-brands-need-to-survive-in-a-digital-world-4050

Digitalization revolution is forcing organizations to change or review their organization processes and strategies. Jay Scanlan (Strategy leader of McKinsey Digital) in his Mckinsey article talks about some questions which an organization should ask at the time of introducing digitalization into their organizations:
• Whether your current business model is viable, or do you need to fundamentally change the nature of how you compete in the marketplace?
• Do you need to transform your core business-as-usual organization rapidly, or you can afford to build new businesses and the new capabilities required to compete and win over the next 10 to 15 years?
• How many new functional capabilities do you need to grow and develop, and how much do you need to change your existing supply chains, your existing operational capabilities, and your existing channel architecture to be more effective?
And to introduce digitalization, you need to rethink on your resource allocation and budgeting strategies. To know more about the benefits of digitalization and how digitalizing is changing strategy, please follow this link: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/strategy/how_digital_is_changing_strategy

According to successful CEOs and marketing experts, the survival of any business in the near future will rely on maintaining close relationships with customers. In this competitive and dynamic world, the ability to predict, adapt and change are the basic necessity for organization’s survival. According to Shawn Casemore (President and Founder of Casemore and Co Inc.), there are three fundamental areas of business that affect the profitability of any organization are:
• Customers
• Market
• Employees

 But for the growth and long-term survival of an organization, they need a close relationship with their customers. Three steps to create a close relationship with your customers are:

• Shift away from a functional mentality.
• Build offerings that deliver value.
• Tune into customer feedback.
To know more about these steps and professional view regarding marketing, please follow this link: http://www.industryweek.com/customer-relationships/increase-profits-creating-closer-customer-connections

“Marketers don't like analysis -- they prefer an epiphany."

- Elaine Murphy

Contrary to this view, analytics isn’t that bad for marketers. Rather, if used effectively, it can bring them some realization. So, the question that now arises is that how can marketers use analytics effectively to their advantage? To answer this question, Jonha Revesencio, Brand Marketer, Storyteller and Global Speaker, has listed down various useful analytics tools in her article at huffingtonpost.com. They are:

• Clicktale
• CrazyEgg
• Jotform
• Simply Measured
• Compete
• Google Analytics

To understand how these tools will help you market better, please visit the following link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonha-revesencio/6-effective-analytics-too_b_7421078.html?ir=India&adsSiteOverride=in

Live chat is the best way to boost overall satisfaction with your customer service

- Zendesk Benchmark Report

Live Chat has emerged as one of the most satisfying customer service channels. This is because of the following reasons:

• Live chat moves customer requests away from web forms and feedback tabs to real time interactions, which enable questions to be answered directly
• Customers like the back-and-forth style of conversation

But, customer service providers should not forget the fact that customers want an accurate, relevant, and complete answer to their question upon first contact. Live chat agents sometimes fail to satisfy customers because of the following issues:

• When the customer has to wait more than 30 seconds for a customer service agent
• As agents start handling more and more chats, the increased workload may impact their ability to respond quickly and thoroughly

According to the Zendesk Report, “To optimize customer interactions, companies should monitor the ebb and flow of their live chat request volume by day and hour”.

To know more about the results of the Zendesk Benchmark Report on Live Chats, please read the following article by Noreen Seebacher, Chief Editor, at cmswire.com:

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/we-should-talk-how-live-chat-improves-cx-029235.php

According to a recent study, 50% of the consumers believe that their brands are clueless about how to reach them and only one in three customers believe that their brand understands them. According to Bill Carmody (CEO of Trepoint), the best way to understand the customer is by emotional intelligence. Emotional Intelligence refers to the ability to perceive, control and evaluate emotions. It is about being real, authentic and intuitive and also helps to develop digital marketing campaigns. Here are some tactics to implement emotional intelligence in digital marketing campaign:
• Understand your audience by using social listening tools such as Topsy, Hootsuite and Social Mention.
• Add value to customers rather than simply pushing your agenda. Adding value includes finding ways to enhance and improve the customer’s experience.
• Try to attract customers by thinking beyond benefits and features.
• Think ways to surprise or delight your audience rather than creeping them. This can be done by using predictive analysis.
• Respect when retargeting.
Read more at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246390

The increasing importance of digital marketing is forcing every organization to use digital marketing. Here are some tips for organizations which are planning to use digital marketing:

·         Hire someone who has knowledge about digital marketing or learn how to use digital marketing.

·         There are various ways to analyze digital marketing, but some of them may suit you or some not. It is important to keep on trying new ways.

·         The best type of digital advertising reaches its audience by consent. Maintain a link between consistent efforts and spamming.

·         Try to make your advertising, mobile-friendly because mobile revolution is the next revolution.

·         There are various tools that allow for a do-it-yourself approach and leverage content across platforms.

Read more at: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/051215/dos-donts-digital-marketing.asp

With mobile usage growing at a tremendous rate for apps and social media, e-commerce companies have realized the importance of collaborating with the mobile platform rather than using just website interface. Social Collaboration has become the new trend. Retailers are now creating experiences for mobiles that add to the website experience.

Consumers are also getting the benefit of convenience. The concept of digital shopping is now becoming their habit. With m-commerce continuing to grow, retail businesses are now seeing a vision of golden age of e-commerce, where convenience and collaboration will play the key role.

To know more, please read this interesting article by Jack Lowinger, Founder and CEO of Cartonomy, at entrepreneur.com:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244208

Millennials are the young adult between the age group of 18-34 years and according to reports total buying power will fetch $1.3trillion annually.  Millennials are diverse in terms of attitude, behavior and language, due to which marketers are facing problem in targeting them. According to Sujan Patel (Entrepreneur and Marketer, VP of Marketing at When I Work), there are some common characteristics shared by all of them. He discussed some tips on targeting millennials, they are:
• You should have an attractive mobile marketing
• Target social groups, instead of life stages
• Be relevant and engaging
To know more about these tips, please follow this link: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246199

In this competitive world, most of the organizations are struggling to attract customers. They are advertising on TV, newspaper, billboards. But, they are not getting success.  Here are some successful marketing strategies used to target the right customer at the right place and at the right time are:

·         Content marketing is one of the most powerful marketing strategies. This includes articles on website, e-newsletters, videos and articles on other website.

·         Make advertisement look visually good by adding pictures. According to a recent survey by Hubspot A/B, images used in tweets increase clicks by 36%, increase retweets by 41%, increase in leads by 55%, and increase visit by 31%.

·         Use responsive design, website technology for detecting the customer’s device and providing reformatted website according to the screen size.

·         For transparency, use social media marketing.

·         And at last, try to relate with target customers.

To know please follow this link:  http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/competitors-arent-01222954

According to Enza Lannopollo (Researcher at Forrester), "organizations ability to protect the customer's privacy is the building block of trust and long-term relationship." According to the Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF) annual research report surveyed 15000 respondents, about 49% of respondents say that lack of trust limits them from downloading the app, 72% of the respondents are not happy with sharing personal data and 34% of the respondents say that lack of trust stops them from buying online apparels.
This shows that trust is one of the most important factors while buying, downloading or sharing personal data on mobile apps. Craig Piezle (executive director of the Online Trust Alliance), offered 9tips for making an effective transparency process:
1. Communicate the value to the consumer.
2. Have a clear and concise privacy policy written for the customers, not for your legal team.
3. Provide the ability for consumers to opt out.
4. Restrict any sharing with third parties.
5. Have a lawyer’s privacy policy with icons.
6. Consider having privacy policies written in multiple languages.
7. Define your retention practices.
8. Move from a compliance mindset to stewardship.
9. Embrace doesn’t track.
To know more about the benefits of using transparency and why transparency is important in today’s customer driven society. Read an article “Big Data: Protecting Privacy Is Good For Business” by Pam Baker (Author of Data Divination: Big Data Strategies) at: http://www.informationweek.com/software/enterprise-applications/big-data-protecting-privacy-is-good-for-business/a/d-id/1320367

Today’s era is Online Era. Online brands are emerging day in and day out. There’s a lot of competition in this sector with thousands of startups growing. Amidst this competition, how do you plan to make your brand stand out? The answer to this is an interactive User Experience via websites that are the face of these brands. Website user experience (UX) is important in forming brand perceptions. By tailoring this experience according to the needs of the customers, a brand can easily win their loyalty.

Greg Zapar, Director of User Experience at Wire Stone, in his article at cmswire.com has shared four key points to keep top-of-mind when optimizing your website’s UX to drive value for your customers. They are:

• Every Touchpoint Matters

• UX and Content are One
• Aim for the Middle
• Visualize Everything

To understand them in detail, please visit the following link:

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/put-your-best-foot-forward-get-smart-about-user-experience-029130.php

“Thought Leadership is innovative thinking within a specific area of knowledge which helps shape the evolution of that field.”

For content marketers, thought leadership is about setting an example in their industry through original content that informs and delights. According to Dorie Clark, “Thought leadership is necessary because it gives people a clear reason to choose you over the competition.”

Nate Birt, Deputy Managing Editor at Top Producer Magazine, in his article at entrepreneur.com, has described five fundamental ways in which content marketers can command thought leadership. They are:

1. Create deep content on mission-critical subjects.

2. Invite users to exclusive beta testing of a new service.

3. Engage with real-time video using Periscope.

4. Start a cross-platform hashtag campaign.

5. Write news releases.

Using these ideas can help a brand to be at the top in its customer’s mind. To know more, please visit the following link:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246056