Month: July 2016

What have we become? (And what are we becoming?)

becoming

Every day, we change. We move (slowly) toward the person we’ll end up being.

Not just us, but our organizations. Our political systems. Our culture.

Are you more generous than the you of five or ten years ago? More confident? More willing to explore?

Have you become more brittle? Selfish? Afraid?

Grumpy and bitter isn’t a place we begin. It’s a place we end up.

Do we intentionally choose the optimistic path? Are we eagerly more open to change and possibility?

Every day we make the hard decisions that build a culture, an organization, a life.

Read more

Are CMOs Deeply Dissatisfied With Traditional Digital Advertising?

Source: ncedogroup.com
Source: ncedogroup.com

The title of this post is a bit of a paraphrase of something Mike Sands said to me not long ago. Mike is the CEO of Signal, a leader in real-time people-based marketing. And his company recently released the findings of a study done in partnership with Econsultancy that highlights the rise of addressable media amongst buyers and marketers.

I’ll get to more of my conversation with Mike in a bit but for right now let’s look at some of the findings from the study, entitled “People-Based Advertising: Evaluating the impact and future of addressable media” — which may give credence to Sands’ belief that indeed CMOs are deeply dissatisfied with traditional advertising.

Right out of the chute was the fact that the majority of advertisers and media buyers have embraced people-based advertising with nearly seven in 10 advertisers reporting that they have used Facebook Custom Audiences while a significant majority plan to increase people-based advertising buys even further in 2016.

Read more

Pages: 1 2

Good Marketing + Great Customer Service = Omni-channel Success

thumbnail-6da653e344d2477ede20f7efea836d9a 2

In today’s world businesses no longer have the luxury of compartmentalizing the customer experience. Consumers have a multitude of ways to engage with a company: walking into a physical store; browsing a catalogue, visiting a website, or using social media. They also have multiple devices for accessing products or services, from desktops to smartphones. So it’s now up to brands to ensure that a consumer’s experience is seamless across all these channels (Omni-channel). However, that’s easier said than done, because many brands are not used to thinking in these new terms. Ensuring consistent, Omni-channel experience means that marketing and customer service go hand in hand. Or at least they should. In practice, there’s often a huge gulf between the two groups, if they interact at all. Too often, marketing opportunities are the carrot, and customer service “obligations” are the stick.

Read more