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How Ireland Is Fast Becoming The AI Island

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By Alison Coleman

Ireland is brimming with tech talent, which is evident in the quality of the many tech startups that continue to emerge from the Emerald Isle, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).

Its capital Dublin is also home to the European headquarters of tech giants that include Facebook, Google and Microsoft, while Brexit could be the catalyst for even more international brands to relocate their European HQ from London to Dublin, providing an additional boost for Ireland’s Irish thriving tech startup ecosystem.

Here are five of the most exciting and potentially influential Irish AI startups.

Opening

Founded in 2015 by Romanian entrepreneurs Andreea Wade and Adrian Mihai, Opening is an AI-powered engine that is disrupting the talent acquisition space by enabling recruiters and HR professionals to ensure that the vital CVs are not overlooked.

Opening creates shortlists of suitable candidates for each job, ranking the most relevant, predicting salaries, and providing other valuable insights and data. The technology can analyse thousands of pieces of content about potential candidates, matching them to their ideal jobs, and it can do it in mere seconds. According to Opening’s website, the hiring time for candidates is reduced by as much as 40%, a bonus for time-pressed recruiters who need to fill positions with top talent as quickly as possible. The technology is particularly helpful to large organisations that receive thousands of CVs for a single job vacancy.

Last year the company secured an investment of €30,000 from the National Digital Research Centre (NDRC).

LogoGrab

Exponential growth in the use of images on social media is behind the growing demand for image recognition technology, including that offered by LogoGrab. Technically a Swiss import founded by Italian entrepreneurs, Luca Boschin and Alessandro Prest, the Dublin-based company’s product has been designed to scan millions of images and videos on social media and identify the specific brand logo images that users want to find.

Companies are notified when their image appears somewhere and provided with additional information on how well their digital marketing strategies are working.

LogoGrab, which took first prize in the 2017 Google Adopt a Startup Spring programme, has worked with major brands such as McDonald’s, Heineken, eBay and Nestlé.

Soapbox Labs

One of Ireland’s leading AI companies Soapbox Lab is using smart voice recognition technologies to help children learn to read. Its technology can spot any mistakes they make as they work their way through the pages of a book. As children read out loud, devices and apps that are enabled by the SoapBox technology provide real-time feedback that helps to improve reading skills while tracking overall progress.

Founded in 2013 by former IBM and Bell Labs expert Dr Patricia Scanlon, who has 20 years’ experience in the area of speech recognition technologies, Soapbox Labs can also assess young readers’ fluency with the help of training from more than 600,000 audio samples from 15,000 kids in over 100 countries.

The company secured a €1.5 million EU grant, in addition to  €600,000 from existing backers, bringing its total investment just over €3 million. The cash injection is helping the latest SoapBox platform to developing French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, and Italian recognition capabilities.

Nuritas

Founded in 2014 by Dr Nora Khaldi, Nuritas uses AI, machine learning and DNA analysis to quickly predict, and then provide access to, some of the potentially beneficial components hidden within food called peptides.

Since its launch, Nuritas has carried out research into ways of preventing diabetes through nutrition and made a major breakthrough when it discovered a peptide that has the capacity to destroy MRSA, a type of bacteria  resistant to several widely used antibiotics. The results could lead to the discovery of new food components to help prevent, manage and even cure deadly diseases.

Last December the Dublin-based biotech company secured a €16 million Series A funding led by Chicago-based investment firm Cultivian Sandbox Ventures, bringing its total investment to date to approximately €25 million. This has included funding from a number of familiar, household names including Bono, The Edge from U2, while Salesforce’s billionaire founder Marc Benioff has also backed the company.

Earlier this year collaboration on AI-based discovery of food-derived bioactive peptides was announced between Nuritas and Swiss food and beverage giant Nestlé.

Popertee

Popertee is an AI platform that connects brands with vacant spaces for short-term retail and marketing campaigns.

The business was founded in 2016 by entrepreneur Lucinda Kelly after she had spotted a gap in the short-term rentals market and come up with the idea of creating spaces where brands could launch pop-ups and connect more effectively with their target audience.

The software combines behavioural and social media data to enable companies to identify the best location for their pop-ups or marketing campaigns. Locations scores range from zero to 100 based on the success of the match to the demographics and interests of companies’ target markets. Brands that have used Popertee include Virgin Media Volvo and Coca Cola. The platform also has the capability to measure the impact of campaigns for brands looking for deeper insights on performance, event planning, agencies and venues.

In June 2017 Popertee raised its €500,000 seed round with Growing Capital, European Investment Fund and Enterprise Ireland.

Feature Image Credit: Shutterstock

By Alison Coleman

Follow Alison on Twitter @alisonbcoleman and https://plus.google.com/+AlisonColeman/posts

I’m a freelance journalist, founder of Coleman Media. For the last 20 years I’ve covered business stories for national and international online and print publications, with a special interest in entrepreneurs and their startups. Away from business, I’m an accomplished…. MORE

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How Sentiment Analysis is Changing SEO and Improving User Experience

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We’ve all been recipients of text messages that force us to try and interpret the sender’s intentions. Are they happy? Mad? Does the decision to use a period and not an exclamation mark mean they aren’t excited? Are they trying to be sarcastic? Was that supposed to be a joke?

If we could run those texts through an algorithm that gave us the answer, life would be a lot easier. Unfortunately, we’re not quite there yet. But we do have the next-best thing. Scientists and researchers have developed algorithmic tools that can conduct a process known as sentiment analysis, which contextualizes writing and other communications to determine the general sentiments of the content.

In a short span of time, these tools have become very sophisticated, displaying the ability to go far beyond the positive-negative binary. Thanks to a sentiment algorithm developed at MIT, it’s even possible to interpret sarcasm implied through the use of emojis, according to MIT Technology Review. That’s invaluable when crawling the web in search of brand sentiments from sources where consumers are spouting their opinions on your company.

Considering all the digital channels where consumers put their feelings into words, this is a huge asset for businesses. Emails, social media, blog post comments, reviews websites, customer service exchanges, and a number of other text-based channels can all serve as outlets for analyzing sentiments and better understanding the customer experience—including what shifts in marketing strategy might better respond to this audience’s needs.

There’s simply too much content out there for most brands to dedicate man-power to reading through all of the available feedback. Reading reviews, scrolling through Twitter mentions, and reading through transcripts of customer service conversations wouldn’t just be tedious—it would also be expensive. Employing a tool for analyzing sentiment, by contrast, is much more cost-effective, and it can drive tangible changes to a company’s marketing strategy. Forward-thinking brands are already taking advantage. Here’s a look at some of the ways sentiment analysis has changed everyday marketing activities.

Image attribution: Mac

Great Content Will Reap Bigger Rewards

The process of analysing sentiment has already made its way into search engine algorithms, and its role figures to increase in the future. Bing added this function to its search platform earlier this year, according to Search Engine Journal, and Google has dropped numerous hints about deploying similar services to its search engine in the near future.

One of the biggest changes to search marketing will be the way SEO backlinks are understood by search engines. Currently, any backlink is considered a good one: Links to your content and brand website are used to validate your reputation and authority, which elevates your SEO profile. But if you’ve spent any time on the internet, you know that not every mention of a brand or website is made in a positive way. Where review websites are concerned, for example, numerous studies have indicated that unhappy customers are far more likely to make a post than satisfied ones.

Negative SEO backlinks shouldn’t support your SEO efforts. Eventually, they won’t: These analyses will be able to read the context around these backlinks to identify negative sentiments, and lower your SEO score accordingly. Again, Bing is already giving this a try, but the biggest change will occur when Google makes this analysis a part of its own algorithm.

In the meantime, marketers have a simple blueprint to make sentiment analysis work in their favour. If you create quality content that is relevant to its keyword strategy, offers a strong user experience on the site, and consistently gives users what they’re looking for, then you’re inevitably going to create positive sentiments and backlinks that improve your SEO.

To put it in simpler terms: If traffic that finds your content through search is happy with what they find, it will open the door to even more traffic in the future.

Assessing Product Feedback

 

 

Image attribution: frankie cordoba

Brands need to understand how products are being received by their consumer base. Solicited surveys don’t get the job done: You need to hear the conversations happening among consumers to really get a sense of what’s working, and what needs to be improved.

The study of consumer sentiments can provide this service, creating a comprehensive picture of the user experience offered by your brand’s products, services, and solutions. This analysis goes beyond star ratings to reading into the full context of anecdotal reviews. This is good news for marketers wanting the most comprehensive overview possible because as ConsumerAffairs reports, the influence of written reviews far exceeds the influence of star-rating systems. Not only are they more accurate and nuanced in presenting consumer sentiments, but they also have greater influence on other consumers. Machine-learning tools can comb through online reviews as well as support tickets, chatbot exchanges, support tickets, and other content to gauge overall attitudes toward these products.

The resulting insights could help shape not only the products themselves, but how they’re presented and marketed to consumers. Since the expectations set by marketing content can affect the reception of products by consumers, paying close attention to these sentiments is a valuable exercise.

Upgrading Customer Service

Customer service is the backbone of any successful business, and therefore should always be a driving concern of your brand marketing strategy. Analysis of transcripts, support tickets, and other customer service content—including even private messages sent to branded social media accounts—can power a number of beneficial changes to how brands handle customer service. According to Level, these changes can include better methods of prioritizing support tickets, as well as identifying trends in customer sentiment at various points in a customer service exchange. Brands can then use these insights to adjust their handling of certain scenarios or problems faced by the customer.

Ultimately, these insights can enable proactive customer service and outreach, as well as faster resolution of problems and increased customer satisfaction. This upgrade of the customer experience will, in turn, increase the positive sentiments floating around the internet, which might ultimately improve your SEO and raise the profile of the entire company.

When used to identify and address customer pain points, sentiment analysis can function as a holistic approach to upgrading the customer experience. Its most transformative applications are yet-to-be-seen, but the tools already available to businesses offer plenty of value in gathering feedback, understanding customers, and refining your marketing strategy to better serve the needs of your audience.

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Jonathan Crowl specializes in digital marketing and content creation for both B2B and B2C brands, with an emphasis on start-ups and technology. His past and current clients include B2B brands IBM, LinkedIn, Mad Mobile, Oktopost, BrightSpot, and Waze, as well as B2C brands Porsche, Epson, and PayPal. He lives in Minneapolis.

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The Best Kept Content Marketing Secrets Exposed

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By Danielle Winski 

As we come to the end of summer, consumers are looking ahead to the holiday season, but the upcoming months are more than just pumpkins and holiday decorations. For brands, it’s a time to reflect on what has worked for their business’ content marketing strategy and determine what they need to change for the new year ahead.

As you begin creating your new content marketing plan, it’s the perfect time to expose some of the top industry secrets for successful email, blogging and social media strategies. Keep reading to find out what they are.

5 Email Content Marketing Secrets Exposed

It’s hard to believe that email marketing is frequently overlooked as a valuable content marketing tool for businesses with statistics like:

Sending out an e-newsletter on a regular basis is very important for your company’s overall strategy. In fact, e-newsletters have a return on investment (ROI) of 122 percent. That’s huge! Ready to use email as part of your business’ content marketing strategy? Here are my top-secret insights to create a winning email marketing campaign.

  1. Make the Subject Line a Priority. This is probably one of the most important writing tips! A subject line can make or break your email’s success; in fact, almost a third of recipients open an e-newsletter based on just the subject line. Take the time to really think about the topic of your letter, what would make you want to open an email and incorporate words that boost open and click-through rates like:
  • Alert
  • News
  • Bulletin
  • Daily
  • Weekly
  • Sale
  • New
  • Video

Once you think you have a strong subject line, run it through a headline analyzer, like CoSchedule, to see how it scores. Make adjustments until you get the best possible subject line you can think of.

  1. Include Your Mobile Readers. Is your primary target ages 18-44? Email is the most common activity for smartphone users in this demographic, and the majority of decision-makers check their email from their mobile devices. It’s vital that your e-newsletters are easy to read and are pleasing to the eye on smartphones, tablets and computers.
  2. Keep it Easy to Digest. Speaking of keeping your e-newsletters easy to read, think about their length (this is one of those writing tips that applies to every area of marketing). Remember to keep each e-newsletter easy to digest. Instead of including 7 paragraphs about your latest product, put the details on your website so you can share the most exciting highlights and link to it from your newsletter.
  3. Stick to a Schedule. How often do you send your e-newsletter out? Although a daily distribution is probably too often, you don’t want subscribers to forget about you completely either. Create a schedule and stick to it. I recommend sending at least two distributions a month, making sure to send them approximately the same time every month.
  4. Analytics Are Your Friend. By actually taking the time to look at your open rates and click-throughs, you can determine the best day of the week to send your e-newsletter, in addition to what type of content readers are most interested in.

6 Blogging Content Marketing Secrets Exposed

Follow these six blogging content marketing secrets to take your blog to the next level.

A well-rounded content marketing strategy should also include blogging. As we’ve shared before, updating your business’ blog on a regular basis is incredibly valuable for making your organization visible online (see the statistics in this blog post). While blogging regularly is key, there are a few secrets that will take your blog to the next level; here are six of them.

  1. Quality and Consistency is More Important than Quantity. Even with a staff that can help you write blog posts, updating your website seven days a week requires a LOT of content creation. It’s better to only upload one post per week if you’re consistent – down to the same day of the week and time of day.
  2. Write for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) AND the Reader. SEO is important! But it’s also vital that you write your blog posts with people in mind, not Google’s algorithms.
  3. Share the Love. You’ve uploaded a post to your blog. Great! Now what? You can’t let your post sit there and hope that people will find it. You need to take an active approach to gain readers. Share the post on your social media pages, too. Depending on which networks you use, add a few relevant hashtags to make it more visible as well.
  4. Success Takes Time. Don’t be discouraged if your blog isn’t an instant success. It takes time to build a strong following. It can take 18 months to a year to build momentum and start seeing a noticeable return on investment, but if you are patient and diligent you will reap the rewards!
  5. Take Advantage of Your Email Lists. Yes, social media is a great way to share your blog posts, but so is your email newsletter! Your email lists are made up of readers that have opted-in to hear from you, so use it to your advantage. There are many ways you can use your blog posts on your newsletters including teasing an already published post on your site or giving recipients access to an article before it’s live on your main website. Test out different ways to share your blog posts over a few newsletters and see what resonates the best with your audience.
  6. Images and Formatting are Important, Too. As important as words are, the overall appearance of your website and the blog posts on it make a difference. Use high-res images, think about formatting and consider how your site appears to new visitors. This blogging secret should also include the length of your posts. Keep your blog interesting by including a mix of long (1,200-1,500 words) and short (500-800 word) posts which are easy to read and informative.

4 Social Media Content Marketing Secrets Exposed

With these social media content marketing secrets, you’ll make your audience fall in love with your business.

Social media can be a powerful, cost-efficient tool. When developing a social media content marketing strategy it is natural that some mistakes will be made. However, using it the wrong way could have a big negative impact on your business. Here are four social media marketing secrets that will help you avoid making destructive mistakes.

  1. Learn about Your Customer Base. An important social media marketing strategy that some businesses miss is learning about who their customer base is. You can add people to your contact list and get Facebook fans and Twitter followers ‘till you’re blue in the face. However, if you don’t know who they are, those Facebook fans or Twitter followers are useless to your business. You need to make sure you’re engaging with your customer base. Find out who they are and what they’re interested in to convert those fans and followers into solid sales leads.
  2. Each Social Media Platform is Unique. One big mistake many businesses make in their social media content marketing strategy is treating all their social media networks the same. Each social media network is different, has its own language, customers and audience. It’s important to learn how people are communicating and sharing on each site.

Many businesses blast the same exact message at the same time across all their social media networks not realizing that this can come across as fake, impersonal or even spam-like. To avoid this, you need to be strategic when writing and posting. Make sure you are writing different status updates for each social media network. Also, make sure to learn a bit about how your fans and followers are responding to posts on your social media networks. What are people engaging with more? What times are you seeing the most activity? Once you learn these two things, you can better plan your social media updates so your business is getting the most out of every post.

  1. Make Sure Your Social Media Profiles Are Complete. One of the first things new users go to when they check out your social media network is your company’s bio. If you have nothing written in your “about” section or it’s missing your businesses’ location or website, you’re also missing out on a huge social media marketing opportunity. If visitors don’t know what your company does then why should they follow your social media network? Don’t assume people know who you are and what you do. Even big brand names make sure to have their about sections filled out in detail.

Bonus tip: Be creative! Try to make your “about” section intriguing, fun and engaging. If you’re writing your bio and it seems boring, then it is most likely boring to your Facebook fans too. Check out these two company bio sections for some inspiration: bareMinerals and Wendy’s.

  1. Focus on Quality, Not Quantity. Like newsletters and blogging, quality will always be more important than quantity. Many businesses are far too worried about the number of followers and fans they have, but that number doesn’t necessarily translate to sales. The truth is, your business needs to be more worried about the quality of your audience. It’s more valuable for your business to have a hundred highly engaged brand advocates than a thousand followers or fans that never engage with your brand. The goal is to build a strong community of loyal, lifelong consumers who will boast about your company to their friends and family.

With these email, blogging and social media secrets now at your fingertips, you’re ready to take to your content marketing strategy to the next level.

By Danielle Winski 

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Digital Marketing Spend Roars Despite Weak Privacy Concerns And Capability Performance

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By Christine Moorman

 

Results from the August 2018 CMO Survey indicate that marketers are charging ahead with digital spending. At the same time, concerns about privacy and the state of digital marketing capabilities lag.

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Let’s begin with the spending. Digital marketing expenditures are expected to increase by 12.3% over the next year and marketing budgets, which are currently 44% digital, are expected to reach 54% digital in the next five years. Consistent with this, spending on social media climbed more sharply over the past year than in any 12-month spell since the survey began. Companies currently spend 13.8% of their marketing budgets on social media, 4 percentage points more than a year ago. That is expected to increase to 16.3% over the next year, and to 22.9%—almost a quarter of marketing budgets—in five years. The Survey also found mobile marketing accounts for 9.4% of marketing budgets, with that share expected to double in the next three years. The proportion currently spent on mobile has more than doubled since February 2017.

Percent of Marketing Budgets Spent on Social and MobileThe CMO Survey

Now to the lags. Sixty-two percent of marketing leaders reported that use of online customer data increased at their firms in the last two years, and 70% said they expect to use more online data in the next two years. These numbers are lower for use of customer data from third-party aggregators, with only 31.3% of marketers reporting increases over the last two years and a slight decrease to 29.7% expected in the next two years.

Has Your Company’s Use of Online or Third-Party Data Changed?The CMO Survey

Amidst all of the concerns about the use of customer data from third-party aggregators, companies do appear to be making changes to the way in which they use customer data. At the same time, privacy concerns do not, however, loom as large as they should with only 10% of firms “very worried” about their use of online or third-party customer data. Looking at this question more closely, we asked marketing leaders to report the extent to which they were worried about their companies use of online or third-party customer data where 1=not at all worried and 7=very worried. The mean response in both cases was below the mid-point, indicating less than moderate levels of concern, on average. We will have to see how this plays out, but I think there is an opportunity for marketers to turn customer concerns about privacy into a competitive advantage and to get in front of regulations that may ultimately be introduced in the U.S. Creating advantage from data collected from customers online while toeing the line on privacy concerns should be front and center for marketers. There is room for innovation here and perhaps this should be the digital capability marketers prioritize.

Marketer Worry Use of Online or Third-Party Data Will Raise Privacy ConcernsThe CMO Survey

The other area that lags in light of digital marketing spending are ratings of digital marketing capabilities, which are only just above the mid-point on a 7 point scale where 7=excellent and 1=poor. B2C companies rate their digital marketing capabilities significantly higher than B2B companies as do companies that generate more of their sales from the Internet. We measure capabilities across all major strategic areas, including developing, executing, and measuring the success of digital marketing strategies, connecting marketing and digital marketing strategies, learning about what works and doesn’t work for digital marketing strategies, and managing external digital marketing partners and agencies.

Strength of Company Capabilities in Digital Marketing Activities (1=poor, 7=excellent)The CMO Survey

Survey results point to this lag by showing that although firms are spending more on social and mobile, there has been no lift in the contributions of these expenditures to company performance. It’s time to build a sustainable engine for converting digital investments into digital bottom line performance. At present, almost 60% of marketing leaders report they build marketing capabilities on their own by training current or hiring new employees with those skills while only 38% engage in some type of partnering with agencies, consultancies, or companies in their value chain. Just 2% acquire other companies to help them learn. It may be time to shake up these knowledge acquisition strategies if the current “build” strategy doesn’t pay off soon!

Read all The CMO Survey results here.

By Christine Moorman

Christine Moorman is the T. Austin Finch Sr. Professor of Business Administration, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.

I am the founder and director of The CMO Survey, which collects and disseminates the opinions of top marketers in order to predict the future of markets, track market excellence, and improve the value of marketing to companies and to society since 2008. I am also the co-auth…MORE

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‘Retail Apocalypse’: 12 Key Takeaways For Marketers

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Sourced from Forbes

According to a report by The Atlantic, hundreds of shops and malls are closing their doors, while several massive retail chains have already gone bankrupt, as e-commerce sites take over the consumer shopping industry. With brick-and-mortar locations becoming a thing of the past, it makes sense that more businesses will fall victim to bankruptcy, store closings and decreasing revenues.

As a business that chooses to continue to operate out of a physical location, you need to consider what your options are online. Reaching consumers online is the future of retail, and your company needs to take an aggressive approach to meet their demands for e-commerce.

Twelve members of Forbes Communications Council share what marketers with both online and offline retail brands should take away from the recent “retail apocalypse.” Here’s what they recommend:

Members give their best advice on how to market during a retail “apocalypse.”Photos courtesy of the individual members.

1. Focus On Big-Picture Customer Experience 

It’s about customer experience — Toys ‘R’ Us often didn’t have competitive prices, needed to lower online shipping costs and made it difficult to return items in store, while sales associates hassled customers, only gave store credit, etc. Brands that will survive and thrive, whether in-store or online, need to provide a good product at a good price with good customer experience. Word gets around. – Amanda Ponzar, Community Health Charities

2. Offer Ease And Convenience

Marketers should understand that ease and convenience are always present in the minds of customers, and modern marketing has made online and offline retail easier than ever before. Our means of production, shopping and acquisition are getting faster every day. And customers have developed a taste for anything quicker or easier than conventional shopping methods. – Jeff Grover, Best Company

3. Embrace Explorers

When a customer walks into your store they are in exploratory mode. Position products that are best experienced through personal interaction. Embrace try-me stations in your retail design. Empower your staff to encourage customers to try out products. This will help consumers create a personal connection with your business, grow brand loyalty and improve sales, while boosting social mentions. – Alysia Gradney, Vision Source

4. Diversify Quickly

Some retailers have found successful solutions that incorporate their physical and online stores. For example, Best Buy Canada is a strong retailer and baby products are a fast-growing vertical, even though they are historically known for consumer electronics. They diversified to stay relevant, and services like ‘buy online, pick up in store’ help integrate their retail stores with e-commerce. – Tony Holbrook, Ingram Micro Commerce & Lifecycle Services

5. Commit To In-Store Innovations

In the wake of the ‘retail apocalypse,’ successful specialty outdoor retail partners of ours are rallying in inspiring and creative ways to offer value-added experiences only brick and mortar can deliver. Examples include in-store coffee shops and/or bars, live music and educational events with outdoor influencers, and yoga or fitness classes. These efforts are a great way to position stores as a community hub to lure customers in on a regular basis. – Janine Robertson, Insect Shield Repellent Technology

6. Show Customers You Value Them

I love the new concept that Nordstrom is debuting, Nordstrom Local — upscale shops just for online shopping. You can comfortably shop online or hang out. You can also pick up online purchases and try on. There are even tailors available if your purchase does not fit perfectly. It’s about building that, ‘I value you’ experience that seems to be missing in traditional stores. Smart marketing! – Denise Joyner West, Technology Concepts Group International

7. Use The Store As A Stage

One of the unique benefits of brick and mortar is the ability to use the space as a stage. Retail marketers have the unique opportunity to create compelling experiences that can attract customers into the store and solidify the brand relationship. All things equal (and even if price is slightly higher), entertainment and education win. Give your audience something they can’t get online. – Scott Schoeneberger, bluewatertech.com

8. Unify Content And Commerce Across All Channels

With the convenience of online shopping, customers expect a seamless experience between digital channels and brick and mortar. Retailers need to differentiate themselves by providing inspirational and engaging experiences for their shoppers. Bringing in experiential marketing (e.g., using virtual reality headsets, free beauty classes, interactive showrooms, etc.) will drive engagement and loyalty. – Morgan Kelleher, Amplience

9. Offer More Than Just Convenience

Convenience is no longer enough reason for shoppers to go to brick-and-mortar store locations. Stores need to think creatively to offer more to their customers because you’re not going to undercut Amazon and other massive online shopping sites. Offer expert service on products, make personal connections with customers, accept returns with issues; in short, offer amazing customer service. – Stephan Baldwin, franchisegator.com

10. Adapt To The Expectations Of A New Generation

Physical and digital presence should give exactly the same experience because the new generation is digitally native. Brick-and-mortar stores should be able to provide the same experience online that the customer gets in store. In my opinion, this is not a ‘retail apocalypse,’ but rather the fact that there are different expectations from a generation that is looking for the same experience both online and offline. – Anshu Agarwal, Stealth start-up

11. Implement An Omnichannel Solution

Try to figure out how to implement an omnichannel solution. Move the customer from the shops to the internet and vice versa. Take advantage of new technologies. Observe the emerging startups. Every year, many modern omnichannel solutions are introduced to the retail market, especially in the area of advertising personalization and user identification. – Pawel Kijko, TimeCamp

12. Give Customers A Good Reason To Go

It’s not so much that consumers don’t ever go to physical stores, but there has to be an overarching reason to go. Sometimes, convenience happens because there is a physical store nearby and sometimes it happens because I can buy something online. The real issue is that brands need to keep up with where and how their consumers want to buy and then find ways to meet that demand. – Kat Krieger, Joyride

Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only, fee-based organization for senior-level communications and public relations executives. Find out if you qualify at forbescommcouncil.com/qualify

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The Favorite to Lead WPP After Sorrell Is Already Making a Mark

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As WPP Plc closes in on appointing a successor to its long-time former CEO and founder Martin Sorrell, one man stands as the front-runner: Mark Read.

Read, Sorrell’s former strategy and digital chief, is the favored candidate internally to run the world’s largest advertising group. There’s growing confidence that he will get the role after a drawn-out process that’s already lasted four months, according to a dozen WPP executives, who asked not to be named discussing a company matter.

Ousted in April, Sorrell built WPP into a global powerhouse from a wire shopping basket maker, became the doyen of the industry and a prominent voice on global trade, appearing regularly on TV and at conferences including the World Economic Forum. Read would be a more operational choice for the board, someone who doesn’t seek the limelight, but who understands the complexities of the business and can act to address its difficulties because he already has an intimate understanding of WPP.

The delay in selecting a successor to Sorrell comes at a critical time for WPP, which has lost a third of its market value over the past 18 months as major clients like consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble Co. spend less on marketing and internet giants Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google threaten to cut out the agency middlemen.

For more on the challenges facing the ‘Mad Men’, read this.

WPP reports half-year financial results on Sept. 4 and is likely to make an announcement about Sorrell’s permanent replacement at some point in that month, according to a person familiar with the matter. The longer the appointment takes, the more investors may fret about the lack of permanent leadership to steer the company through the industry’s major shift.

Unilever’s chief marketing officer Keith Weed, Dentsu Aegis CEO Jerry Buhlmann, IBM executive David Kenny and Tim Armstrong, the CEO of Verizon Communications Inc. subsidiary Oath, have all been mentioned as potential external candidates challenging Read.

WPP declined to comment, as did Read. Sorrell didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Read, the interim co-chief operating officer alongside Andrew Scott, is already making an impact. Here are some of the ways in which he’s filled Sorrell’s shoes, according to those who work with him:

Communication

Sorrell micro-managed WPP, a global network of hundreds of ad agencies, incessantly firing off emails to lieutenants about business minutiae and continuing exchanges long into the night. While still seen as appropriately responsive, Read has dialed back the correspondence during unsociable hours. And even then, decisions are being made faster. WPP staff put that down to a shift in power away from head office and bypassing the log-jam of Sorrell’s phone.

Read’s tone is also softer, with executives describing him as more thoughtful and less combative than Sorrell, and as a good listener who doesn’t assume he has all the answers. Quarterly reviews with Sorrell were often a dressing down, an impression absent when meeting Read, according to one executive.

Collaboration

While Sorrell regularly spoke of the importance of WPP’s different divisions working together, that cooperation has become more prevalent under Scott and Read. There is a new-found spirit of collaboration between company bosses, with more meetings between WPP agency leaders over the past few months than at any time under the former CEO, one executive said.

Profile

Despite being Sorrell’s de facto replacement for the past four months, Read has kept a relatively low public profile. He made limited appearances at the Cannes Lions festival in June — the ad industry’s annual jamboree where Sorrell made a splash.

While Sorrell would frequently appear in media and cultivated a celebrity image, Read is seen as more modest and reserved. His day-to-day preferred method of transport is Uber and public transport instead of a chauffeur-driven car and he has a limited entourage.

Restructuring

Read has been circumspect about what he would change at WPP, careful not to over-step his mandate as interim co-chief operating officer. But he has discussed how WPP could be re-shaped, including floating ideas such as merging creative agencies with faster-growing digital or media businesses.

For Read’s first interview with Bloomberg in June, click here.

He’s also looking at ways to simplify WPP’s organization — Sorrell had more than 100 direct reports, a practice Read would look to change. WPP is also moving out of its long-standing small Mayfair headquarters in a symbolic break from the Sorrell era.

Feature Image Credit: Mark Read Photographer: Aidan Crawley/Bloomberg

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Sourced from Bloomberg

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Netflix sets the record straight over plans to introduce ads

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By Gillian West

With news spreading Netflix is adding ads, the streaming service has stepped in to set the record straight – it’s testing skippable video promotions between episodes and movies.

Introduced quietly this week, Reddit users sparked confusion when some claimed they saw a video in between episodes they weren’t able to skip, while others spotted a ‘skip’ button.

With users threatening to quit over the addition of ads, Netflix issued a statement on Friday reading, “we are testing whether surfacing recommendations between episodes helps members discover stories they will enjoy faster.

“It is important to note that a member is able to skip a video preview at anytime if they are not interested.”

A spokesperson for Netflix added the videos were not ads or commercials, but personalised recommendations for other shows and movies on the service. They claimed it conducts hundreds of tests per year, most of which aren’t adopted.

The addition of video previews that play while browsing were added in 2016, with Netflix revealing they cut down the amount of time people spent browsing “significantly”. Since then it has been experimenting with different kinds of video such as this.

Worldwide, Netflix boasts 130 million customers. In April, The Drum reported Netflix was investing “more in marketing of new original titles to create more density of viewing and conversation around each title.”

Source: CNN

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Feature Image Credit: Netflix has set the record straight on the addition of ‘ads’

By Gillian West

Sourced from The Drum

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Amazon Music animates Ariana Grande, Kendrick Lamar and SZA in ad campaign for the service

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By Kyle O’Brien

Amazon Music is pushing its paid streaming music service with a new campaign as a way for listeners to power their preferences by using Alexa.

The service is building on its momentum with the launch of ‘A Voice is All You Need.’ The campaign highlights the powerful vocals of notable songs while demonstrating the simplicity of voice with Alexa, featuring leading artists at launch including Ariana Grande, Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Queen and Kane Brown.

The ad creative, developed with Wieden+Kennedy, celebrates the growth of Amazon Music against rivals like Apple and Spotify, by noting its lead in voice innovation while playing off isolated vocals from notable artists in a journey through the voice experience with Alexa on Amazon Music.

In the first video, Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s All the Stars gets animated in a 30-second spot that starts off with brightly hued lips singing the lyrics. The lips then turn blue as the Lamar’s rap begins, then morphs into the Amazon arrow, which also turns into a mouth and asks Alexa to play the song as it promotes the 30-day free trial for the service.

Another ad rises high above Times Square to push Ariana Grande’s new album, Sweetener. The three-tiered digital ad starts with the ‘A Voice is All You Need’ phrase, then turns rainbow colored with a pic from the album and the text: “Alexa Play New Ariana Grande.”

Launching at a time where the number of Amazon Music hours streamed globally on Alexa-enabled devices has doubled over the past six months compared to the same time last year, ‘A Voice is All You Need’ will begin appearing today in select US cities, and will expand to the UK and Germany throughout the year across media channels including national online video, radio, and out-of-home billboard advertisements in support of upcoming new releases. Select creative from the campaign will also appear on national TV later this year.

By Kyle O’Brien

Sourced from The Drum

 

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5 Digital Marketing Trends for Busy Small Business Owners

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Sourced from Vavmy

Small business owners wear numerous hats. One minute you’re the CEO, the next minute an assembly line worker, or an end-of-the-day accountant. As a result, your marketing efforts may not get as much attention as you would like. According to the 2017 Small Business Marketing Trends Report created by Infusionsoft, finding time for marketing is the top challenge small businesses will face in 2017.

With such limited time for marketing, it’s imperative for small business owners to work smarter and not harder. The good news is, there are several effective digital marketing trends you can easily take advantage of that will yield a good return on your investment.

Mobile. Mobile is the most upwardly trending platform in media today. Think about it. When are you not in an intimate relationship with your phone on a daily basis. Mine knows more about me than my wife. With more and more consumers using their mobile devices to read email, surf the Web, and check social media, it’s important that each part of your digital footprint is optimized for mobile.

Video. Most social media platforms have video capabilities—and consumers are racking up millions of hours watching this content. Producing videos for Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Snapchat is an excellent way to increase engagement with your audience and inspire brand loyalty. And if the videos are live streamed, that’s even better as it creates a sense of intimacy between you and your followers.

Furthermore, small business owners can derive great benefits from the use of their promotional video, commercial, content tease, or sales pitch as a pre-roll through YouTube’s network. You’ve seen these spots that precede the video you’ve chosen to view. Guess what. They work. Statistics show more and more users are either viewing the entire spot or clicking through to an actionable web page.

Influencers. It’s not a coincidence that businesses turn to celebrities to help market their products: People are most likely to take recommendations from those they trust and admire. But just because you can’t afford to get Kim Kardashian to tweet about your business for $10,000 a pop doesn’t mean you can’t leverage the power of influencers. Chances are there is a social media influencer in your market—like a popular blogger or YouTuber—who you can hire to be a brand ambassador for you. You may even be able to save money by entering into a barter arrangement with that person.

Personalization. If you think that adding your subscribers’ names to your email campaigns is all you need to do to personalize your marketing, you’re not doing nearly enough to build a connection with your audience. In order to truly personalize your digital marketing, you must understand your customers’ habits and preferences—which will go a long way toward getting their attention and cutting through the advertising noise they experience every single day.

Metrics. According to Infusionsoft, 47 percent of small business leaders have no idea if their marketing campaigns are effective or not. To understand what your customers click on and what they share, take advantage of the analytical tools provided by Google and social media platforms. This will allow you to produce more of the content your audience responds to—and eliminate the content that isn’t worth your limited time.

Although trial and error is a natural part of marketing, as a busy business owner, you simply don’t have time to mess around with techniques that aren’t going to be effective. By incorporating these growing strategies into your marketing plan, you can expand your reach while still getting the best return on your time and money investment.

Sourced from Vavmy

 

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Are you feeling it? Why consumer companies must master the experience economy

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According to an influential analysis of the consumer economy, companies have to offer their customers unforgettable experiences in order to succeed (see Figure 1).¹

This vision of companies selling experiences is now becoming a reality. The breakthrough has been made possible by the explosion in connectivity, the advances in analytics and artificial intelligence, and the growing profusion of smart devices and sensors that we have witnessed over the past few years.

This new reality is forcing companies to reconsider whether their current revenue models and offerings are adequate to stand out from the competition. The move from offering products to offering experiences shifts the focus from outputs to outcomes, whether for the individual or for wider society.

The experience economy is one of four themes that we believe will be central to the digitization of the consumer industries over the next decade. The other themes we examine are consumer data flow and value capture, omni-channel retail and digital operating model.

Hyper-personalization in goods

With painstakingly curated Instagram pages and Facebook profiles, today’s consumers are also used to customizing their online world. They now expect the same level of personalization in many of the products and services that they buy. The business rationale for companies to offer hyper-personalization varies. It may be to build brand loyalty or to create a niche within a premium segment. For others, particularly e-commerce platforms where competition is fierce, offering hyper-personalized products can be a point of differentiation from their rivals.²

For hyper-personalization to be successful, operating models need to become more flexible and companies may also need to implement a cultural change. Investments in areas such as data mining, analytics and production processes are needed. The potential rewards for businesses could be substantial, with personalized products and memorable experiences translating into brand loyalty and the opportunity to charge a premium. Hyper-personalization, while beneficial for consumers and companies, could have a potential environmental downside by increasing the amount of packaging material used, waste generated or delivery miles incurred.

Case study
 Burberry and Fendi

Burberry first launched a made-to-order catwalk as part of London Fashion Week show in 2013. It offered a personalization service that allowed consumers to order products and have their name engraved into the coat tag or bag plate. Similarly, Fendi is manufacturing ‘personalized handbags’, offering customers the opportunity to create a one-of-a-kind handbag by selecting the color and material and having their name or initials woven into the body of the bag.

From products to services and experiences

With recent advances in technology, the digital economy is now able to deliver a wider range of services and experiences that people are looking for. Uber epitomizes this preference for a service: it is more convenient to pay a small fee and summon your chosen vehicle and ‘personal chauffer’ with a couple of taps on a smartphone than to buy a car, make sure it is properly fueled and insured, and find somewhere to park it. Offering services to complement products enables businesses to develop a longer-term engagement with their customers. With that engagement comes the potential for newer methods of capturing value and the chance to build strong customer loyalty.

Case study
 Nespresso

Nestlé has managed to convert its Nespresso product into an experience by building branded boutiques that showcase coffee machines and capsules, while at the same time closely integrating these with online ordering and fulfillment services.³

Companies that manage to create unique, personalized and memorable experiences for their customers will generate the most value. It’s been forecast that by 2018, B2B sellers that incorporate personalization into digital commerce are set to realize revenue increases of up to 15%.⁴ This requires investment in service design and possibly also in the physical environment where the experience will take place.

Health and wellness-driven goods and services

The cost of caring for people with chronic diseases is increasing, and now accounts for 75% of health expenses in the United States. This development is driving growth in healthcare spending. With a large population of consumers looking to live healthy lives, there are significant opportunities for companies offering health-based services. For example, the market for healthcare wearable devices is expected to grow at 30% a year until 2019.⁵

Case study
 Samsung and Fitbit

Samsung decided to introduce health-related sensors, such as pedometers, in some of its latest smartphones. These phones help users track exercise schedules, food intake, weight, sleep patterns and heart rate. A health wearables company, Fitbit, allows users to share their health outcomes and compete with a community of friends.

Products of this kind encourage a healthy lifestyle, and the experience helps drive health outcomes for societies dealing with malnutrition or obesity. For companies entering what could be a booming segment of the consumer market, a key point of differentiation will be how credibly they can market real health benefits to consumers. A crucial capability for these firms will be the ability to demonstrate transparency in their supply chain, nutritional data and products.

Footnotes:
1. The Experience Economy, B Joseph Pine, James H Gilmore
2. Moss Bros. is poised to hyper-personalize its interactions with consumers
3. Accenture, “The Future of Consumer Goods: Moving From Analog to Digital”, 2014
4. Gartner, Gartner Says IT Leaders Will Need to Develop a Stronger Relationship With Marketing, 2015
5. Datamation.com, Health Wearables a $41 Billion Market by 2020: IndustryARC
6. Sleepreviewmag.com, Wearable Healthcare Devices, Services Markets to Grow at CAGR of 30.42% through 2019

Sourced from World Economic Forum

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