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Showing posts with the label marketing

The Politicization of Everything

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We find ourselves today in a hyper-politicized environment that business leaders must recognize, understand and be prepared to address.  Increasingly a business’ brand, mission statement, identified purpose, marketing themes, suppliers and the executive team’s social media activities are all being scrutinized to reveal political positions to either support or oppose.  Whether intended or not, or true or not, claims made by pundits and popular social media influencers can quickly lead to market segmentation that may have a direct impact on a business.   Prudent business leaders will think through these issues before they happen.  They will want to discuss the most likely trouble spots and identify the most likely scenarios and impacts.  The goal of these exercises is to create a playbook on how best to respond when it happens.  When it happens, the speed at which it can impact your business necessitates foresight and planning. Earlier this year in Boise, Idaho, new owners of a pizza joi

Adapting Our Minds to Perpetual Change

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Customers' expectations continue to grow. They want instant, convenient, personalized, customized, predicted, recommended, rewarded and private. They want their own curated lifestyle mirrored back to them. They want control. They want mobile and fast. They desire digital experiences that are simple, consistent, beautiful and elegant. They want massive quantities of information – but in bite size quantities. They want to manage their lives from a smart phone anywhere at any time. The want to work from a coffee shop and be 100% productive. Most of the world has already embraced the digital revolution. Our lives and behaviors are changing. The way we think and act are evolving as we integrate digital tools into our habits and processes. We constantly reach for our second brains (i.e. Wikipedia, search engines, apps) to access all of the information needed to both survive and thrive in the digital age. Our memories have been altered. We remember how to find information, rather than

The Power of Knowing

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Throughout history military leaders have suffered through the “fog of war" - the desperation of not knowing critical information.  Information as basic as where are my people and resources, and where are my opponents' people and resources? The answers to these questions were and are critical for implementing the right strategies and tactics to win. Likewise, the absence of answers to these questions are equally impactful. Leaders spend enormous amounts of time and energy defending against all the possibilities represented by a lack of data. Think about a scenario of being lost in a dark forest at night with an unknown dangerous predator lurking about. Which direction would you face? How would you defend yourself? It is difficult in the best of times, but the absence of data can make it even more excruciating!

A Digital Winner's Playbook

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Winners know how the game is played. When rules change, so do their game plans. In this article I have created a customer experience playbook on what it will take to win in 2019. 1. Information dominance is a key goal. Throughout history conquerors gained by capturing territories, bridges, resources and key cities. Today’s conquerors gain with data insights that can be applied to customer experience. 2. Combinatorial data is key to understand customer experience. Data gathered from many different sources then combined and analyzed will provide unique insights into patterns, activities and behaviors invisible to competitors without. 3. Operational blind spots are a minefield for businesses. Blind spots must quickly be replaced with visibility through all kinds of data capture - automated data capture, surveys, digitization, sensors and RPA (robotic process automation).

The Power of Influencer Marketing in B2B

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When many of us hear the term "Influencer Marketing" we immediately think of B2C examples involving celebrities on Instagram with exaggerated appendages hawking wares, but what about influencer marketing in a B2B context?  I've recently had the privilege of learning from and interviewing many experts on the matter - including the Global Head of Influencer Marketing at SAP,  Ursula Ringham .  Influencer marketing is about showing that other credible people, outside of your company, have similar views of the world. Influencer marketing in B2B often involves a company reaching out to associate themselves with a recognized person in an industry or market that has a high level of credibility, respect and positive influence.  Astute companies surround their brands and messaging with influencers that share similar views. Influencers are not just important in a marketing context, but companies have long chose influencers to join their board of directors, and/or become compa

A Deep Dive into Influencer Marketing and Strategies with SAP's Ursula Ringham

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In this interview I recorded with SAP's Ursula Ringham, she shares her insights and experiences operating in one of the largest and most sophisticated influencer marketing organizations anywhere. She details SAP’s thinking around influencer marketing and how it operates. If you are a marketer wanting to organize an influencer marketing effort, this interview is for you. br /> ************************************************************************ Kevin Benedict SVP Solutions Strategy, Regalix Inc. Website Regalix Inc. View my profile on LinkedIn Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies ***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Digital and Marketing Leadership: Robin Matlock, CMO of VMware on Marketing and Branding Strategies and the Role of Social Responsibility

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In this episode I have the privilege of sitting down with the brilliant and very busy CMO of VMware, Robin Matlock, at VMworld 2018, and taking a deep dive into marketing strategies, branding and the role companies should play in  serving the greater good.  Enjoy! ************************************************************************ Kevin Benedict SVP Solutions Strategy, Regalix Inc. Website Regalix Inc. View my profile on LinkedIn Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies ***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Insights and Strategy from SAP's VP of Web Marketing Gail Moody-Byrd

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Kevin Benedict and Gail Moody-Byrd Kevin: Thanks for joining us today Gail!  Let’s talk about your title, Vice President and Head of Web Marketing at SAP.  What do you get to do in this role? Gail: It’s really an interesting new role. It was created to do a couple of things. SAP.com, the website, is going through a transformation and we are moving from a site that largely generated awareness and shared information, to a site that drives business value. The team that works for me does a couple of things. We manage the web pages for products and industries, and now we are responsible for the performance of the website. How are the pages performing? How are they connecting with our visitors? We are making sure that every interaction is a good one. We are giving website visitors a lot of opportunities, through chat and other things, to engage with the site.  We are also making sure that the hand-off from the website to the sales team is clean, clear and effective, and the leads the

Digital Transformation in Marketing with SAP's CMO of Customer Experience Kevin Cochrane

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I am excited to share my interview with Kevin Cochrane, SAP’s CMO of Customer Experience.  SAP, as one of the largest global technology companies, has been in the midst of an impressive level of digital transformation in sales, marketing and customer experiences.  They have been deeply involved in supporting GDPR (global data protection regulation), focused on improving personalized customer experiences, and developing new brands and products (C/4Hana) to support digital commerce, sales, marketing and customer services all while helping them develop a more intelligent enterprise.  Enjoy! ************************************************************************ Kevin Benedict SVP Solutions Strategy, Regalix Inc. Website Regalix Inc. View my profile on LinkedIn Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies ***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly

Digital and Marketing Leadership: SAP's CDMO Mika Yamamoto

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In this episode, I have the privilege of interviewing SAP’s Chief Digital Marketing Officer, Mika Yamamoto about SAP’s marketing strategies.  We discuss why SAP decided to separate the CDMO role from CMO, and what each of their responsibilities are.   Spoiler Alert – The CMO watches after the SAP brand and aims to make it a top-10 global brand, while the CDMO focuses on demand generation and customer retention.  We also explore how SAP supports the EU requirements for GDPR, the global data protection regulation, and how it can actually be turned into a competitive advantage.  Enjoy! ************************************************************************ Kevin Benedict SVP Solutions Strategy, Regalix Inc. Website Regalix Inc. View my profile on LinkedIn Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies ***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enoug

My Interview with Digital, AI and Marketing Expert Chris Willis, CMO @Acrolinx

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In this episode,   Acrolinx   CMO, digital, AI and marketing expert Chris Willis, walks us through the use of artificial intelligence to ensure marketing, brand and message clarity and consistency.  Their platform “learns” content strategy, and makes it actionable across your enterprise. They deliver a comprehensive view of content quality, while monitoring key metrics and fine-tuning guidance with AI. ************************************************************************ Kevin Benedict Senior Vice President Solutions Strategy, Regalix Inc. Website Regalix Inc. View my profile on LinkedIn Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict Subscribe to Kevin's YouTube Channel Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies ***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

AI and Marketing Mix Modeling

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In the course of my research on the impact of artificial intelligence on sales, marketing and customer experiences, I have been learning about Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM).  If you are not familiar with it, here is a quick description from our friends at Wikipedia. "Marketing mix modeling (MMM) is a way to optimize advertising mix (where money is spent on advertising) and promotional tactics with respect to sales revenue or profit.  It is an analytical approach that uses historic information, such as syndicated point-of-sale data and companies’ internal data, to quantify the sales impact of various marketing activities."  As I dug deeper into MMM I saw both the value and the complexity involved.  However, my liberal arts degree, in no way prepared me for it. The ideas and concepts around MMM have been used in the CPG (consumer packaged goods) industry for decades, but little outside of that industry.  The reason - it required massive volumes of data and greater comput