Analytics

Content marketing gets three times more leads than paid search advertising, according to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI). It costs 62 percent less than traditional marketing, Demand Metric has found. That's impressive, but can you confidently say you fully understand how it works?

In order to deliver superior customer experience, companies should combine human talent with technology, including much-needed digital expertise, to turn their current revenue and growth strategies into customer satisfaction. The companies that truly succeed engage their customers and strengthen the...

EXPERT ADVICE

How to Take CPG Sales to the Next Level

Consumer packaged goods, or CPG, are the everyday items consumers use, such as food, beverages, clothes and household products. These products are ones that require regular replacement or replenishing. Due to the frequency of purchases and the low cost of switching brands, this market is extremely c...

OPINION

Why a Single Source of Truth Often Isn’t

Salesforce used its annual Dreamforce mega-show to make a host of announcements, ranging from contact center partnership with Amazon to a smart speaker tool for sales. For the most part, the keynote featured practical applications of Salesforce technology. Some Dreamforces focus on the highly aspira...

EXPERT ADVICE

Keeping the ‘Service’ in SaaS

In today's highly competitive B2B software industry, it's not enough to staff a call center and sit back and wait for customers to reach out when they need you -- it's imperative that you take the initiative. When customers have so many solution vendors to choose from, service becomes a strategic di...

The Rise of D2C

D2C commerce is on the rise. Increasingly, consumers are expecting to interact directly with the companies that market and manufacture products. "Direct-to-consumer commerce has been enhanced by the explosion of the Internet. E-commerce provides a more convenient and frictionless buying experience,"...

A venture between Google and Ascension, one of the largest healthcare providers in the United States, will give the tech giant access to the sensitive medical information of as many as 50 million patients in 21 states. Its venture with Google, called "The Nightingale Project," would enable it to imp...

Companies stepping into this new era of event marketing are discovering massive, untapped business value in repeatable, scaled event programs. From field marketing programs and roadshows to user groups and sales dinners, companies are going beyond the large tentpole conferences to reach people acros...

We're just a few short months away from the California Consumer Privacy Act going into effect. The regulation brings privacy rights to residents in California and gives them control of their personal information and how companies can use it. Any business that sells to a California resident needs to ...

Businesses have been using secret scores created by data brokers to determine how much to charge consumers, whether to allow purchase returns, and what level of service to offer, among other things. "Most consumers will never know when they are the victim of a secret surveillance score," noted Laura...

EXPERT ADVICE

Creating Brand Loyalty in the Era of Now

As technology advances and consumers' expectations and digital sophistication rise exponentially, marketers no longer can focus on delivering static messages, regardless of how "targeted" or "multichannel" they may be. It's no longer enough simply to greet a customer by name.

INSIGHTS

A New Business Model With Help From CRM

I have been writing about Salesforce for 20 years. That's incredible for me because, aside from marriage, there's nothing in my life that I've done consistently for so long. Perhaps, like a marriage, the thing that has been attractive about Salesforce is its constantly changing nature.

We're starting to rely more on AI to interpret massive amounts of consumer and third-party data in real time, and to make it relevant. As a result, businesses can create personalized and tailored interactions for their customers at every step of the buying journey.

I don't see how you can operate a modern application development shop without a platform. Many vendors, if not most, offer a platform or platform-like environment, and a new approach to development, called "DevOps," has been percolating in the information technology space.

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