How to Perform a SWOT Analysis for Your Small Business
SWOT (not to be confused with SWAT) can be a game changer for any team, business, or organisation that wants to be successful. Oh, you say you want that too? Well then, you just may need a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis for a small or medium-sized business (SMB) is a powerful but simple process. It gives businesses a clear view of their current position and helps them understand how to be more successful. We’ll cover what it is, the benefits, and how you can get started with your small business, today. Here’s your guide to SWOT: What is a SWOT analysis? Why is a SWOT analysis important? Four key elements of SWOT analysis for small business How to conduct a SWOT analysis for small business SWOT analysis example: a small business case study What’s next for small businesses? What is a SWOT analysis? The term ‘SWOT’ stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. By identifying how they stack up within these four categories, businesses can discover their strengths and potential weaknesses, and identify their long-term competitive differentiation and potential threads. SWOT analysis is a strategic planning and management technique that’s sometimes called situational assessment or situational analysis. Why is a SWOT analysis important? A SWOT analysis includes both internal and external factors. Internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) are those that businesses can control or change. External factors (opportunities and threats in the wider economy) are those that lie outside of a business’s control. These four key factors provide the foundations that businesses can use to plan for the future. They can do this by using their internal strengths to counter external threats. (Back to top.) Four key elements of SWOT for small business A small business will look at the following four categories when conducting a SWOT analysis: 1. Strengths (internal) A business’s strengths are a sign of its main advantages in the marketplace. Strengths can include a one-of-a-kind product, or excellent service and aftercare. Ideally, strengths are unique, are not easily replicated by the competition, and help maintain customer loyalty. For example, your company may have a unique, patented product, or a highly loyal customer base. These things would be difficult for your competition to replicate. 2. Weaknesses (internal) These are the elements of a business that aren’t operating as efficiently as they could and might hold you back from competing effectively. Your business might lack experience in design, or you might be using outdated systems that don’t talk to each other. A business’s weaknesses are a sign of what it needs to do better to operate at peak efficiency. For example, a company might be failing to generate repeat purchases due to poor after-sales communication and a sub-optimal customer journey. You could improve this by increasing staff training, or by automating certain processes. 3. Opportunities (external) Opportunities are areas where your business may gain a competitive advantage. They can present themselves at any time, and even sometimes out of the blue. Small businesses can ensure they are ready to take advantage of them whenever they arise. Having identified your strengths and weaknesses through SWOT analysis, you can understand how you are positioned to capitalise on potential opportunities – and where you might need to improve in order to take advantage of them. An opportunity can be anything from a competitor’s misstep to changed legislation, to weather that impacts your competition’s supply change. 4. Threats (external) We live in an unpredictable world, and threats can come at any time. From changing regulations, rising materials costs, and shifts in customer priorities. Threats are external factors, as they are things that businesses can’t influence. But you can try to future-proof yourself in key areas and mitigate your weaknesses. Automating processes can make you more efficient, so you can focus more on keeping customers happy. And, making contingency plans using digital solutions can help operations to run smoothly in times of crisis. (Back to top.) How to conduct a SWOT analysis for small business A SWOT analysis is a highly flexible tool that can be tailored to fit the needs of any business that’s using it. Here are some key points to consider when conducting a SWOT analysis. Put together a broad team For a SWOT analysis to be effective, it needs to gather a range of viewpoints from around the business. Talking only to customer services or business analytics teams will give a skewed perspective. Ensure that each major department is represented, from those handling day-to-day operations on the ground to those planning for the future. Listen to ideas The team you assemble will be unique, with a particular mix of perspectives and skills. A good first step is to encourage everyone to share their initial thoughts, perspectives, and ideas. Do this either in person, as a group, or virtual, the most important thing is to allow people to share their views in an open and non-judgmental setting. Create your timeline When everyone has shared their ideas, it’s time to make some decisions. Those leading the SWOT analysis will want to identify key focus areas, choose a methodology, and decide on a timeline. Present the findings: A simple grid, with one quadrant for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, is a great way to represent the findings of a SWOT analysis visually. In this form, the insights can be easily shared across the business. (Back to top.) SWOT analysis example: SMB case study Here’s a SWOT analysis example that small businesses can use to identify their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. We will use Clara’s Cake Kitchen, a fictitious bakery. Strengths Location: Suburban location near a train station that draws in foot traffic during rush hour. Product: The owner produces high-quality artisanal cakes that customers come back for, again and again. Marketing: The owner successfully uses social media channels to generate buzz about the business and has a large following. Weaknesses Unpredictable ROI: Although the bakery is very busy at several points during the day, and on weekends, there are lots of quiet times during the day, and during the summer. Online reach: The owner has not invested in click-and-collect or online services, as she doesn’t know if it will be worth it in the long run. Equipment: Some of the kitchen equipment is second-hand, and is prone to break, requiring expensive repairs and causing order delays. Opportunities Loans and funding: Organisations like the Small Business Administration (SBA) offer loans and funding programs that could help Clara’s Cake Kitchen expand, upgrade equipment, and capitalise on new opportunities — potentially creating jobs in the process. External events: There are some new food festivals and markets starting up in the nearby city. Having a presence at these events could help to expand the brand’s reach. Threats Cost of materials: The cost of raw materials that the owner uses to bake the cakes may likely increase. It’s becoming harder to find key ingredients without a long lead time. Competition: More local bakeries are offering custom cakes from home kitchens, with lower overhead costs and fewer equipment issues. Summary Clara’s Cake Kitchen will need to use its strengths to counter its weaknesses while taking advantage of opportunities and preparing to tackle the threats. Adding online ordering and easy pickup for commuters might be an avenue for the bakery to guard against new competitors and higher costs. Her team could host an event for their customers, offering discounts or freebies. And, together, they can build and grow with a low-cost collaboration tool, like Starter Suite. (Back to top.) What’s next for small businesses? We’re in a challenging moment where competition is fierce, the landscape is in flux, and seizing new opportunities is crucial. Conducting a SWOT analysis, and enlisting the right tools for the job, can help today’s small businesses address weaknesses, double down on what they do well, and position themselves to succeed in any economy.
How To Qualify A Lead – Frameworks and Lead Scoring?
Companies constantly seek ways to optimise their sales and marketing strategies in the competitive business landscape. One crucial aspect of this optimisation process is lead qualification, the process of determining the potential and suitability of prospective customers. This article delves into the concept of lead qualification, its significance, benefits, and challenges. We will explore various frameworks used in lead qualification, including BANT, CHAMP, and GPCTBA/C, and provide insights into selecting the most appropriate framework for your business. Additionally, we will examine how LIKE.TG, a leading customer relationship management (CRM) platform, supports lead qualification and enhances sales efficiency. What is lead qualification? Within the business environment space, companies constantly optimise their sales and marketing strategies to stay competitive. A critical aspect of this optimisation process is lead qualification, the process of determining the potential and suitability of prospective customers. Lead qualification enables businesses to focus on the most promising leads, increasing efficiency and effectiveness. Simply put, lead qualification is the process of identifying leads that are most likely to convert into customers. By assessing various factors such as the lead’s budget, authority, need, and timeline, businesses can prioritise their sales and marketing efforts, allocate resources effectively, and prioritise leads that ultimately drive revenue growth. Lead qualification is a gatekeeper, filtering out unqualified leads and allowing sales teams to focus their time and energy on nurturing the most promising opportunities. This targeted approach improves sales productivity and enhances customer satisfaction by ensuring that resources are directed towards leads who are genuinely interested in the company’s products or services. Effective lead qualification is a cornerstone of successful sales and marketing strategies. By investing time and resources in qualifying leads, businesses can increase their chances of converting prospects into customers, driving business growth, and achieving long-term success in a competitive marketplace. Why is lead qualification important? In today’s competitive business landscape, efficiently converting leads into customers is essential for sustained growth and profitability. Lead qualification plays a pivotal role in achieving this objective by enabling businesses to identify and prioritise the most promising leads, those who exhibit a genuine interest in their offerings and possess the characteristics of valuable customers. Businesses can make strategic decisions about where to allocate their sales resources by qualifying leads. This allows sales teams to focus their efforts on nurturing and cultivating the most promising leads, increasing the likelihood of successful sales outcomes. By avoiding the trap of pursuing unqualified or disinterested sales leads alone, businesses can enhance their sales efficiency and effectiveness, maximising their chances of success. Furthermore, lead qualification contributes to improved customer satisfaction. By ensuring that only qualified leads are passed on to the sales team, businesses can deliver personalised and targeted sales experiences to their customers. This approach increases the receptivity of leads to sales pitches and facilitates meaningful conversations with sales representatives. As a result, customer satisfaction soars, and businesses build a positive brand reputation. Moreover, lead qualification empowers businesses to optimise their marketing and sales resources. Businesses can tailor their marketing campaigns and sales strategies by gaining a deep understanding of the specific needs, challenges, and preferences of qualified leads. This targeted approach enhances the relevance and effectiveness of marketing efforts, leading to higher conversion rates and a substantial return on investment. Finally, lead qualification serves as a critical metric for measuring the efficacy of marketing and sales efforts. By tracking and analysing the conversion rates of qualified leads, businesses can obtain valuable insights into the effectiveness of their lead generation and sales strategies. This data-driven approach enables businesses to continuously refine and improve their sales processes, driving long-term growth and success. Lead qualification is a cornerstone of successful sales and marketing strategies. By identifying, prioritising, and nurturing the most promising leads, businesses can maximise their chances of converting prospects into customers, enhancing customer satisfaction, optimising resource allocation, and achieving sustainable growth. Benefits of lead qualification process Lead qualification offers numerous advantages that can significantly enhance your sales and marketing strategies. These benefits are critical for businesses looking to optimise their sales efforts, reduce costs, and drive growth. Here are several key benefits of lead qualification: 1. Focus on Sales Efforts and Save Time: Lead qualification helps sales teams focus their time and resources on the most promising leads. By identifying qualified leads, sales representatives can prioritise their efforts and target the most likely customers to convert. This focused approach saves sales reps valuable time and ensures that sales efforts are directed towards the most relevant opportunities. 2. Increased Sales Efficiency and Effectiveness: Lead qualification improves sales efficiency by allowing businesses to concentrate on leads genuinely interested in their products or services. This targeted approach reduces the time spent on unqualified leads, ensuring sales representatives engage in meaningful conversations with potential customers. As a result, sales teams can close more deals and drive higher revenue. 3. Improved Customer Satisfaction: Lead qualification enhances customer satisfaction by ensuring that potential customers are matched with the right products or services. By understanding the needs and requirements of each lead, businesses can provide personalised and relevant solutions, leading to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. 4. Optimised Marketing and Sales Resources: Lead qualification optimises marketing and sales resources by ensuring marketing efforts focus on generating high-quality leads. This alignment between marketing teams and sales teams improves the overall efficiency of the lead generation process and ensures that marketing investments are utilised effectively. 5. Accurate Measurement of Marketing and Sales Performance: Lead qualification serves as a valuable metric for measuring the effectiveness of marketing and sales efforts. By tracking the number of qualified leads generated and converted into customers, businesses can assess the success of their lead-generation strategies and make data-driven decisions to improve their overall performance. In summary, lead qualification is crucial in helping businesses focus their sales efforts, save time and money, improve sales efficiency and effectiveness, and ultimately close more deals. Businesses can optimise their sales and marketing strategies and drive sustainable growth by implementing a robust lead qualification process. Challenges of lead qualification Despite its importance, lead qualification is not without its challenges. One of the primary challenges is the time-consuming nature of the process. Evaluating each lead thoroughly requires careful consideration of multiple factors, including budget, authority, need, and timeline. This can be particularly demanding for businesses that generate a high volume of leads. Another challenge lies in the complexity of accurately assessing lead quality. Determining whether a lead is a good fit for a product or service requires subjective judgement and can be influenced by various factors, such as the lead’s communication style, level of engagement, and the evaluator’s own biases. This complexity can lead to inconsistencies in the qualification process and potentially result in promising leads being overlooked or disqualified prematurely. Obtaining accurate and up-to-date information from leads can also pose a challenge. Inaccurate or outdated information can lead to flawed assessments and misaligned sales efforts. This challenge is particularly relevant in industries where customer needs and preferences evolve rapidly. Businesses must employ effective data collection and verification strategies to ensure that they have access to reliable information for lead qualification. Another challenge is balancing the need for thorough qualification with the need to move leads through the sales funnel quickly. While it is essential to assess leads carefully, excessive qualification can slow down the sales process and potentially frustrate leads who are genuinely interested in the product or service. Finding the right balance between thoroughness and efficiency is crucial to maintaining a healthy sales pipeline and optimising conversion rates. Finally, the lead qualification process is not immune to bias and subjectivity. Evaluators’ personal biases and preferences can influence their assessment of leads, leading to inconsistent or unfair evaluations. To mitigate this challenge, businesses should establish clear and objective qualification decision criteria beforehand, provide training to ensure consistent application of these criteria and implement regular audits to monitor and address any potential biases in the process. How to Qualify Leads using BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing) One effective method for qualifying leads is by using the BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing) framework. Let’s explore each element of BANT and its significance in lead qualification: Budget: Assessing a lead’s budget is essential to determine if they have the financial means to purchase your product or service. By understanding their budget constraints, you can align your offerings accordingly and avoid wasting time on leads who cannot afford your solutions. Authority: Identifying the decision-maker or the person with the authority to make a purchase is crucial. Knowing who has the power to say yes can streamline your sales process and ensure that you’re directing your efforts towards the right individuals. Need: Determining the lead’s specific needs and pain points is vital. Understanding their challenges and objectives allows you to tailor your pitch and demonstrate how your product or service can solve their problems. Timing: Assessing the lead’s timeline for the decision-making process or a decision is equally important. Knowing their urgency can help you prioritise your efforts and allocate resources effectively. Leads with shorter timelines may require more immediate attention and follow-up. By evaluating these four key factors, you can effectively qualify leads and focus your sales efforts on those who are most likely to become customers. This targeted approach increases your chances of success, improves sales efficiency, and optimises your marketing and sales resources. How to Qualify Leads using CHAMP (Challenges, Authority, Money, and Prioritisation) Qualifying leads is crucial in optimising your sales efforts and ensuring efficient resource allocation. The CHAMP framework offers a practical approach to assessing the potential of a lead and determining if it aligns with your product or service. Challenges: Begin by comprehending the potential customer’s specific challenges and obstacles. Your product or service should offer effective solutions to their pain points. Ask questions to identify their most pressing concerns and evaluate if your offerings can provide genuine value. Authority: Identify the key decision-maker within the organisation. This individual holds the power to make purchasing decisions. Engaging with the wrong person can waste valuable time and resources. Ensure you communicate with the individual with the authority to commit to a purchase. Money: Financial readiness is a critical factor in lead qualification. Determine the potential customer’s budget and assess if it aligns with the cost of your product or service. It’s essential to ensure they have the financial means to purchase. Prioritisation: Understand the urgency and timeline of the potential customer’s needs. Are they ready to decide soon, or is their purchase on a longer horizon? Evaluate if your delivery capabilities match their requirements and if they’re prepared to move forward with a purchase. By thoroughly evaluating these four key factors, you can effectively qualify leads and focus your sales efforts on those with the highest potential to convert into customers. This systematic approach enhances sales efficiency, increases customer satisfaction, and optimises your marketing and sales resources. Embrace the CHAMP framework to make informed decisions for sales and marketing teams and drive successful business outcomes. How to Qualify Leads using GPCTBA/C (Goals, Plans, Challenges, Timeline, Budget, Authority, and Negative Consequences/Positive Implications) The GPCTBA/C framework is a comprehensive approach to lead qualification that evaluates multiple dimensions of a lead’s situation. By considering the lead’s goals, plans, challenges, timeline, budget, authority, negative consequences of inaction, and positive implications of taking action, you can better understand their needs and assess their fit for your product or service. Goals: Begin by understanding the lead’s goals and objectives. What are they trying to achieve? How does your product or service align with their aspirations? Leads whose goals align with your offerings are more likely to be genuinely interested and motivated to purchase. Plans: Assess the lead’s plans for achieving their goals. Do they have a clear strategy in place? Are they actively seeking solutions to address their challenges? Leads with well-defined plans and a sense of urgency are more likely to be ready to make a purchase decision. Challenges: Identify the challenges and obstacles that the lead is facing. What are the pain points that your product or service can address? Leads experiencing significant challenges and seeing your offering as a potential solution are more likely to be receptive to your sales pitch. Timeline: Determine the lead’s timeline for making a decision. Are they looking for an immediate solution, or are they still in the early stages of their research? Leads who have a clear timeline, decision process and a sense of urgency are more likely to be ready to engage in a sales conversation. Budget: Understand the lead’s budget and decision-making authority. Do they have the financial resources to purchase your product or service? Are they the primary decision-maker or do they need to consult with others? Leads with the budget and authority to make a purchase decision are more likely to be your marketing-qualified leads. Authority: Assess the lead’s level of authority within their organisation. Are they the primary decision-makers, or do they need to obtain approval from others? Leads with the authority to make a purchase decision without extensive approval are more likely to be qualified leads. Negative Consequences/Positive Implications: Consider the potential negative consequences of inaction and the positive implications of taking action. How would the lead’s situation be impacted if they do not address their challenges? How would your product or service positively impact their business or personal life? Leads who recognise the potential negative consequences of inaction and the positive implications of taking action are more likely to be motivated to make a purchase decision. By systematically evaluating these seven critical factors, you can effectively qualify leads, prioritise your sales efforts, and focus on those who are most likely to convert into customers. This approach improves your sales efficiency and effectiveness, enhances customer satisfaction, and optimises your marketing and sales resources. How to Choose the Best Framework for Qualifying Leads Choosing the most suitable framework for qualifying leads is crucial to the success of your sales team. Several factors need to be considered when making this decision, including the size of your sales team, the complexity of your sales process, the resources you have available, and the specific needs of your business and your target market. If you have a small sales team and a relatively straightforward sales process, you may be able to get by with a simple framework such as BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing). However, if you have a larger sales and marketing team or a more complex sales process, you may need a more comprehensive framework such as CHAMP (Challenges, Authority, Money, and Prioritisation) or GPCTBA/C (Goals, Plans, Challenges, Timeline, Budget, Authority, Negative Consequences of Inaction, and Positive Implications of Taking Action). Ultimately, the best way to choose the right framework for qualifying leads is to test different frameworks and see what works best for your team. You can do this by tracking the conversion rates of leads who have been qualified using different frameworks. Over time, you can determine which framework is most effective at generating revenue for your business. Here are some additional tips for choosing the best framework for qualifying leads: Start with your ideal customer profile What are the characteristics of your ideal customer? What are their needs and pain points? Once you know who you’re looking for, you can develop a framework to help you identify those customers. Consider your sales process. How do you typically sell your product or service? What are the key steps in your sales process? Your lead qualification framework should be aligned with your sales process so that you can identify leads who are ready to buy. Get input from your sales team. Your sales team is the one who will be using the lead qualification framework, so it’s important to get their input. What are their needs and concerns? What kind of information do they need to qualify leads? Test different frameworks. There is no one-size-fits-all lead qualification framework. The best way to find the right framework for your business is to test different frameworks and see what works best. By following these tips, you can choose the best framework for qualifying leads and improve your sales efficiency and effectiveness. LIKE.TG and Lead qualification LIKE.TG is a powerful customer relationship management (CRM) platform that can be used to improve the lead qualification process by providing a number of features that can help businesses assess the potential of leads. These features include lead scoring, lead qualification criteria, and lead automation. Lead scoring is a process of assigning a numerical value to each lead based on their likelihood of becoming a customer. This lead score is calculated using a variety of factors, such as the lead’s industry, company size, job title, and previous interactions with the company. Lead scoring can be used to identify the most promising leads and prioritise them for sales follow-up. Lead qualification criteria are a set of rules that are used to determine whether a lead is qualified for sales outreach. These criteria can be based on various factors, such as the lead’s budget, authority to make a purchase, and need for the company’s product or service. Lead qualification criteria can help businesses focus their sales efforts on the most likely to convert leads. Lead automation is a process of using software to automate the lead qualification process. This can include tasks such as capturing lead data, scoring leads, and routing leads to the appropriate sales representative. Lead automation can help businesses save time and resources by automating the repetitive tasks associated with the entire lead qualification process. By using LIKE.TG, businesses can improve the lead qualification process and focus their sales efforts on the most promising leads. This can a sales-qualified lead, to increased sales, improved customer satisfaction, and reduced costs.
How To Scale Your Customer Service With Chatbots
When customers reach out to a company for service, they expect fast response times and resolutions, no matter what channel they use. Agents, however, can only handle so many cases at a time. How do you scale support? Enter customer service chatbots. These chatbots are powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to answer common customer questions. They help customers quickly resolve simple questions and concerns and free up agents for complex, human interactions. How to create customer service chatbots Customer service chatbots tackle simple, repetitive tasks that don’t require the soft skills and experience of an agent. For example, if a customer asks how to reset a password or wants to know an estimated delivery time, a customer service chatbot quickly answers the question by accessing relevant information automatically. At the same time, your agents stay focused on solving complex problems and building relationships with customers. If your company is just beginning to invest in a chatbot, your first objective is to identify the most common tasks and customer requests to determine what to automate. Keep the following six tips in mind when designing your initial AI-powered chatbot: 1. Personalise every greeting You train customer service agents to be friendly, greet customers by name, and recognise their status or tier of service. Your AI interface can do the same things within your chatbot. Program chatbots to pull in values like “First Name” for customers who are already logged in, to ensure chatbots greet them in a natural way. 2. Move from static to conversational Most customers don’t want to fill out a form online and then wait 24 hours to get a response. An AI customer service chatbot that dynamically asks different questions based on customer inputs is more engaging. It also helps resolve the customer’s concern faster. Even if an agent ultimately steps in to help, they will already have the information collected by the chatbot available in their console. 3. Create interactive FAQs Instead of prompting customers to visit your FAQ page, have chatbots bring the answers to your customers. Load your top-level FAQ questions — including any follow-up questions and their corresponding answers — into your AI interface. With natural language processing (NLP), chatbots recognise language as it’s used in everyday interactions, making it easy for your customers to get the answers they seek. 4. Deploy chatbots to additional channels You’ve likely enabled service across a few digital channels — like mobile messaging, web chat, and social — so your customers can reach out in the way they prefer. But the average customer now uses nine different channels to communicate with companies. That means there are plenty of opportunities to evolve customer service to meet ever-changing expectations. Start by digging into your analytics to find the channel that gets the most traffic for your business, then find the top ten most common requests on that channel. Save time for your agents by programming your chatbot to answer those requests. 5. Engage customers with rich text and content Basic text is good for answering simple questions, but rich text — including boldface, italics, fonts, font sizes, and font colors — delivers the wow factor. Imagine being able to insert images or even interactive menus into a chat conversation. Based on customer questions, your chatbot shows a menu of products, a selection of knowledge articles, or more options for customer support, all within the chat. 6. Embed process automation in chatbots Empower customers to help themselves with guided, step-by-step directions right there in the chat. Ask your team which tasks would be easy for customers to complete on their own. These are the ones your agents could execute with their eyes closed (like replacing a lost credit card). Once you’ve identified a few simple tasks, program chatbots to guide customers from start to finish. In the case of complex issues, the chatbot may still have to hand off the conversation to an agent. But the agent is well-primed because chatbots collect information that helps them resolve each case quickly. Scale customer service with chatbots Your customers will appreciate how customer service chatbots provide quick, efficient resolutions to their questions and concerns. Meanwhile, your agents will stay focused on complex customer service challenges instead of answering frequently asked questions. That’s how your business can easily scale support to handle any surge in cases, whenever they come your way. Learn how AI-powered customer service chatbots can: Streamline service Scale support Satisfy customers Find out more about scaling your customer service with chatbots. This post originally appeared in the U.S.-version of the LIKE.TG blog.
How To Sell Better in 2021
“Sell me this pen.” Who could forget the last scene in the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street”? That’s the scene in which Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) asked a colleague to “sell me this pen.” They discuss the process as a simple matter of supply and demand. But sales experts know effective selling is never about simply listing the useful features of a product. In the digital age, selling is an art. To learn more about the art of sales, we turned to top sales experts in ASEAN. We compiled their advice on building a great sales culture, closing a deal, and so much more into an e-book: 50 Pro Sales Tips for 2021. Here are 10 of the sales tips that experts shared with us: This post originally appeared on the A.U.-version of the LIKE.TG blog.
How To Structure and Plan Your Digital Marketing Strategy in 2021
A good digital marketing plan should start with a solid understanding of your brand and its value to your audience. It should set priorities for short-, mid-, and long-term business goals and articulate a well-defined path to achieving them. While a digital marketing plan is primarily meant to organise your marketing team, it should also be cross-functional and incorporate the work, milestones, and objectives of other teams, and align with the organisation as a whole. But first, what’s a digital marketing plan? It’s a document that details all of the planning for your digital marketing initiatives and activities. This plan is focused on how you will reach your target audiences and engage them in the digital space. Learn more about creating one over at Trailhead. 2020 brought a global pandemic that shifted the way we live and work, and created unprecedented obstacles. What does that mean for 2021? Marketing professionals need to reflect on what we’ve learned and set themselves up for success. How can you create a marketing plan that works? We’ve got a few ideas. Here are some areas to focus on to help structure your digital marketing plan for 2021. These tactics, architectures, and methodologies will help ensure your plan is clear, actionable, and measurable. Most importantly, your digital marketing plan will set you up for success in 2021 and beyond. Set goals for your digital marketing plan Structurally speaking, your plan should include three levels of detail: Goals. These should be meaningful and aligned with larger business objectives. To set the right goals for your team, use a methodology like the S.M.A.R.T method (Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant and Time-based). Strategy. This is the topline approach to how you’ll try to achieve those goals. Break down your annual objectives into achievable and stretch quarterly milestones. Tactics. These are the specifics about how you’ll execute your strategy. Another methodology is the V2MOM method, a LIKE.TG acronym for Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, and Measures. This method was developed by our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Marc Benioff, and it is used by our organisation to drive company alignment. If you’re curious about creating organisational alignment in your own business, learn how to do it by taking the V2MOM Trail on LIKE.TG’s free learning platform, Trailhead. Regardless of how you set your goals, you should take the time to set strategic priorities. While you may want to achieve them all, not every goal should have the same weight or importance to your team. Lastly, check in with your goals often. Use a data visualisation tool, preferably one with a dashboard where you can see all of your KPIs at a glance. This will help you easily see how to attribute success to specific efforts so you can focus more on what works. Create personas of your audience, and act on them Once you’ve established your overall goals and tactics for the year, it’s time to shift your focus to your audience. Who are you speaking to? What do they want to hear? What problems can you solve for them? A well-planned digital strategy should incorporate what you know about your audiences’ wants, needs, and behaviors. How do they like to interact with your brand? What do they rely on you for? What do they need to move forward at various points in the buying process? Segmentation is key to creating targeted activations that connect in a meaningful way and drive action with specific cohorts within your audience. Develop and make use of user personas to help you understand your audience better. These profiles combine demographic and psychographic information about different segments of your audience to create more specific target segments. Strong data visualisation tools help spot trends that let you form educated assumptions about your audience. When combined with broader market research, this information can help you craft these profiles. User personas can also help tailor your content strategies to connect with specific audiences in ways that are meaningful to them. Your messaging, the channels you use, how often you communicate, and even when – these can all be informed by a digital marketing plan that uses strong segmentation and the right reporting tools. You’ll learn more about your audiences over time. And as you do you’ll be able to make your efforts even more relevant. Measure the success of your digital marketing plan, and learn from it To evaluate your plan and its efficacy, make sure you’re looking at the right metrics. Analyse your data and look for trends. Do you understand the KPIs? While conversions are the ultimate goal, understanding your audience’s full ecosystem of actions and behaviors will allow you to reach success. The more granular you can get with your reporting, the more insight you’ll have. With the right data visualisation tools, you will easily be able to see if you’re reaching your objectives. Doing business under COVID-19 has taught us that adjusting with agility and grace is essential. Your digital marketing plan is a roadmap for success that requires some flexibility; a plan that’s too rigid becomes irrelevant fast. While we can’t yet predict what lessons we’ll learn this year, with the right plan in place, we’ll be ready for anything. Staying ahead of the marketing game in 2021 The COVID-19 pandemic forced marketers to start figuring out how to better connect with customers and deliver what they need, when they need it. As businesses kickstart in 2021, it’s more important than ever for marketers to deliver innovative customer experiences that are meaningful, engaging, and personalised.
How To Succeed in the All-Digital, Work-From-Anywhere World
Normally this time of year, we’d be with many of you in the APAC on Tour lounge in San Francisco, chatting about the amazing Dreamforce keynote we’d just seen. This year, LIKE.TG brought the magic of Dreamforce to our offices, living rooms, and kitchens around the world. LIKE.TG Chair and CEO Marc Benioff stood before a holiday-themed LIKE.TG Park with a message of the power of community amid uncertainty. He celebrated those who have stepped up for their communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Nothing is possible without you, our Trailblazers,” said Benioff. “A lot of the help – in the distribution, the acquisition [of PPE] and in the support, things we’ve really needed to provide – came in partnership with you.” LIKE.TG Chair and CEO Marc Benioff delivers the Dreamforce To You 2020 Keynote from LIKE.TG Park in San Francisco | WATCH THE DREAMFORCE TO YOU 2020 KEYNOTE While Benioff highlighted LIKE.TG’s exceptional quarterly results, he emphasised that in a year of unprecedented disruption, the company has been guided by its core values. “Doing right and doing good is what is driving our culture forward. Whether it’s innovation or philanthropy, or culture,” said Benioff. “We are trailblazers, together.” Come on down, Slack Benioff also welcomed Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield to the Dreamforce keynote, following the announcement of the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire Slack*, saying that combining Slack with LIKE.TG Customer 360 will be transformative for customers and the industry. The combination will create the operating system for the new way to work, uniquely enabling companies to grow and succeed in the all-digital world. “This is a pivotal moment and opportunity to transform the way we work.” – Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield (left) joins Benioff on-stage. | WATCH THE DREAMFORCE TO YOU 2020 KEYNOTE “This moment is one that we will remember in a couple of decades from now,” Butterfield said. “I think this is a pivotal moment and opportunity to transform the way we work so that we’re not as reliant on the physical office, that we can have a digital HQ.” Benioff also introduced Bret Taylor, LIKE.TG President and Chief Operating Officer, who reflected on the shift to digital that many companies have made over the past year. “We’re in an all-digital, work-anywhere world,” Taylor said. “Doctor’s offices have moved to telemedicine, [we’re] doing business over Zoom, consumer goods companies are going direct-to-consumer via custom apps. We’re not going back. “When I look at what it means to grow in this new normal, it’s Slack plus the Customer 360.” Digital experience is an imperative Every business, Taylor continued, across every industry, needs to deliver seamless, connected digital experiences. “This year is all about change. We have gone digital overnight. And we’ve been using this phrase with our customers, ‘the digital imperative’, because, let’s be honest, it’s 2020. If you don’t have a digital business, you don’t have a business.” “It’s 2020. If you don’t have a digital business, you don’t have a business.” – President & COO Bret Taylor discusses the digital imperative. | WATCH THE DREAMFORCE TO YOU 2020 KEYNOTE In this time of enormous disruption, customer expectations are changing rapidly. This year’s State of the Connected Customer report surveyed 12,000 consumers and 3,600 business buyers worldwide, and found that 88% expect companies to accelerate digital initiatives due to COVID-19. A huge 80% of business buyers expect to conduct more business online, while 58% of consumers expect to do more online shopping after the pandemic than before. It’s a challenging environment, in which leaders will separate from the pack. “Trailblazers are using this year as an opportunity to overcome that adversity and accelerate that move into digital. To really transform customer experiences and recognise that next year is going to continue to accelerate this move towards the digital consumer, and the digital customer,” Taylor said. “I talk to a lot of CIOs and I know this is really hard in practice. Data silos and legacy systems feel like an anchor that are preventing you from moving forward and getting to where you want to go. This is why we created the LIKE.TG Customer 360.” “I talk to a lot of CIOs and I know this is really hard in practice […] This is why we created the LIKE.TG Customer 360.” – Bret Taylor | WATCH THE DREAMFORCE TO YOU 2020 KEYNOTE Announcing Hyperforce: The world’s #1 CRM on major public clouds Taylor also announced a significant upgrade to that Customer 360 Platform. With Hyperforce, the world’s #1 CRM platform has been reimagined to securely and reliably deliver LIKE.TG Customer 360 on major public clouds. “Probably the most significant technological shift in this platform since Marc and Parker created it” – Bret Taylor announces Hyperforce. | FIND OUT MORE IN THE DREAMFORCE TO YOU 2020 KEYNOTE “We have been working for the past two years on probably the most significant technological shift in this platform since Marc and Parker created it over 21 years ago. We call this new capability Hyperforce. We’ve had to completely re-architect LIKE.TG to work in this way,” Taylor said. “As a consequence it is horizontally scalable. That means that if you happen to be a B2B company with 10,000 customers, or you’re a B2C customer with 100 million or more consumers, you can now use LIKE.TG as your single source of truth for all of that data.” Announcing Einstein Automate: Making every experience intelligent “Creating connected, intelligent experiences for customers, employees, and communities is of the utmost importance,” Sarah Franklin, EVP & GM, Platform, Trailhead & AppExchange, LIKE.TG, told us as she introduced the new Einstein Automate. “Laser-focused on intelligence, integration, and automation.” – Sarah Franklin introduces Einstein Automate. | FIND OUT MORE IN THE DREAMFORCE TO YOU 2020 KEYNOTE Franklin explained how these intelligent innovations are helping governments go digital, fast – and helping local businesses get back to growth by making every customer experience intelligent. AI-infused flows and bots help organizations automate tasks and workflows. Packaged libraries empower organisations to be able to quickly use solutions specific for their industry. “With Einstein Automate, every organisation in every industry around the world can go with the flow of change,” said Franklin.’ Announcing LIKE.TG Service Cloud Workforce Engagement With stores either closed or offering limited hours, contact centres today are dealing with a huge surge in the volume of questions from customers across service channels like phone, chat, text, and social media. Service leaders need to be able to organise their entire workforce from anywhere and distribute the right work to the right agents based on skills and service channel. Enter Service Cloud Workforce Engagement. To be made available in northern-hemisphere Summer 2021, Service Cloud Workforce Engagement will help service leaders in contact centres predict demand for customer service, staff appropriately, and remotely coach agents in real-time to deliver trusted service experiences. Find out more – watch the Keynote. How Trailblazers are succeeding To navigate uncertain times, Benioff delivered a playbook for customers to drive success in the digital imperative. The playbook has three chapters, focused on leveraging intelligence, unifying data, and creating great experiences. To explain, Benioff shared three stories of customers taking a Trailblazer’s mindset to succeed in an unexpected year. The State of Rhode Island’s COVID-19 story When the pandemic hit, the government of Rhode Island – an east-coast US state with a population just over 1 million – had to look at new ways of moving into action fast. In the keynote, Marc Benioff spoke with Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo and we learnt how her team leveraged intelligence and automation to combat COVID-19 cases and protect the health of Rhode Island’s population. Hear the story from Governor Gina Raimondo and her team in the Dreamforce to You Keynote Bentley Motors’ Beyond100 vision Live from Crewe, England, the Bentley Motors team shared how the organisation has transformed this year with a connected data strategy. “With a 360-degree view of the customer, we can create a single source of truth that allows us to create extraordinary experiences for our customers and that’s what we need moving forward,” said Dr Astrid Fontaine, Member of the Board for People, Digitalisation & IT, Bentley Motors. Bentley had been a B2B company until the pandemic hit, and it had to market and sell directly to consumers. Today – less than a year into this transformation – Bentley brings the showroom experience to every prospect, digitally. Customer Audience 360 is driving personalised and relevant experiences across every channel. Customer 360 Privacy Centre ensures Bentley Motors can collect and respect its customers’ privacy preferences and remain compliant. And with Tableau, Bentley builds a full picture of the business and turns insights and predictions into action. Hear the story from the Bentley team in the Dreamforce to You Keynote AT&T: Seamless, connected digital experiences Marc Benioff sat down with AT&T Communications CEO Jeff McElfresh to talk about AT&T’s seamless, connected experiences. “They [AT&T] were able to train more than 30,000 remote retail sellers on this new experience in under five months. That’s going digital, fast!” said Benioff. Go along on the journey, with McElfresh and the AT&T team in the Dreamforce to You Keynote The show must go on – all month! “We’ve heard some amazing stories today,” Benioff told us as he brought the keynote to a close. “But this is just the beginning of Dreamforce.” Dreamforce to You runs for the entire month; and all Trailblazers can sign up at Dreamforce.com for the entire Dreamforce to You experience — including DreamTX starting 14 December. DreamTX is four days, five channels, with hundreds of sessions deep-diving on innovation and new products. Sign up for Dreamforce to You – you’re not too late! This post originally appeared on the A.U.-version of the LIKE.TG blog. *Forward-Looking Statements This communication relates to a proposed business combination transaction between LIKE.TG.com, Inc. (“LIKE.TG”) and Slack Technologies, Inc. (“Slack”). This communication includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements relate to future events and anticipated results of operations, business strategies, the anticipated benefits of the proposed transaction, the anticipated impact of the proposed transaction on the combined company’s business and future financial and operating results, the expected amount and timing of synergies from the proposed transaction, the anticipated closing date for the proposed transaction and other aspects of our operations or operating results. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified by phrases such as “will,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “foresees,” “forecasts,” “estimates” or other words or phrases of similar import. It is uncertain whether any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do, what impact they will have on the results of operations and financial condition of the combined companies or the price of LIKE.TG or Slack stock. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the parties’ control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to: the impact of public health crises, such as pandemics (including coronavirus (COVID-19)) and epidemics and any related company or government policies and actions to protect the health and safety of individuals or government policies or actions to maintain the functioning of national or global economies and markets; the effect of the announcement of the merger on the ability of LIKE.TG or Slack to retain and hire key personnel and maintain relationships with customers, suppliers and others with whom LIKE.TG or Slack do business, or on LIKE.TG’s or Slack’s operating results and business generally; risks that the merger disrupts current plans and operations and the potential difficulties in employee retention as a result of the merger; the outcome of any legal proceedings related to the merger; the ability of the parties to consummate the proposed transaction on a timely basis or at all; the satisfaction of the conditions precedent to consummation of the proposed transaction, including the ability to secure regulatory approvals on the terms expected, at all or in a timely manner; the ability of LIKE.TG to successfully integrate Slack’s operations; the ability of LIKE.TG to implement its plans, forecasts and other expectations with respect to LIKE.TG’s business after the completion of the transaction and realize expected synergies; and business disruption following the merger. These risks, as well as other risks related to the proposed transaction, will be included in the registration statement on Form S-4 and proxy statement/prospectus that will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) in connection with the proposed transaction. While the list of factors presented here is, and the list of factors to be presented in the registration statement on Form S-4 are, considered representative, no such list should be considered to be a complete statement of all potential risks and uncertainties. For additional information about other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements, please refer to LIKE.TG’s and Slack’s respective periodic reports and other filings with the SEC, including the risk factors identified in LIKE.TG’s and Slack’s most recent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Annual Reports on Form 10-K. The forward-looking statements included in this communication are made only as of the date hereof. Neither LIKE.TG nor Slack undertakes any obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances, except as required by law. No Offer or Solicitation This communication is not intended to and shall not constitute an offer to buy or sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any securities, or a solicitation of any vote or approval, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. No offering of securities shall be made, except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of Section 10 of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Additional Information about the Merger and Where to Find It In connection with the proposed transaction, LIKE.TG intends to file with the SEC a registration statement on Form S-4 that will include a proxy statement of Slack and that also constitutes a prospectus of LIKE.TG. Each of LIKE.TG and Slack may also file other relevant documents with the SEC regarding the proposed transaction. This document is not a substitute for the proxy statement/prospectus or registration statement or any other document that LIKE.TG or Slack may file with the SEC. The definitive proxy statement/prospectus (if and when available) will be mailed to stockholders of LIKE.TG and Slack. INVESTORS AND SECURITY HOLDERS ARE URGED TO READ THE REGISTRATION STATEMENT, PROXY STATEMENT/PROSPECTUS AND ANY OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS THAT MAY BE FILED WITH THE SEC, AS WELL AS ANY AMENDMENTS OR SUPPLEMENTS TO THESE DOCUMENTS, CAREFULLY AND IN THEIR ENTIRETY IF AND WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY CONTAIN OR WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION. Investors and security holders will be able to obtain free copies of the registration statement and proxy statement/prospectus (if and when available) and other documents containing important information about LIKE.TG, Slack and the proposed transaction, once such documents are filed with the SEC through the website maintained by the SEC at http://www.sec.gov. Copies of the documents filed with the SEC by LIKE.TG will be available free of charge on LIKE.TG’s website at www.LIKE.TG/investor or by contacting LIKE.TG’s Investor Relations department at [email protected]. Copies of the documents filed with the SEC by Slack will be available free of charge on Slack’s website at investor.slackhq.com or by contacting Slack’s Investor Relations department at [email protected]. Participants in the Solicitation LIKE.TG, Slack and certain of their respective directors and executive officers may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies in respect of the proposed transaction. Information about the directors and executive officers of LIKE.TG, including a description of their direct or indirect interests, by security holdings or otherwise, is set forth in LIKE.TG’s proxy statement for its 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, which was filed with the SEC on May 1, 2020, and LIKE.TG’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020, which was filed with the SEC on March 5, 2020, as well as in a Form 8-K filed by LIKE.TG with the SEC on June 1, 2020. Information about the directors and executive officers of Slack, including a description of their direct or indirect interests, by security holdings or otherwise, is set forth in Slack’s proxy statement for its 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, which was filed with the SEC on May 5, 2020, and Slack’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020, which was filed with the SEC on March 12, 2020. Other information regarding the participants in the proxy solicitations and a description of their direct and indirect interests, by security holdings or otherwise, will be contained in the proxy statement/prospectus and other relevant materials to be filed with the SEC regarding the proposed transaction when such materials become available. Investors should read the proxy statement/prospectus carefully when it becomes available before making any voting or investment decisions. You may obtain free copies of these documents from LIKE.TG or Slack using the sources indicated above.
How To Take Your SaaS Business to the Next Level With AppExchange
AppExchange is the leading enterprise app marketplace to help LIKE.TG customers solve business challenges. As an independent software vendor (ISV) partner, you have the opportunity to sell your app to over 150,000 LIKE.TG customers by building on the LIKE.TG Platform. By joining this network of LIKE.TG Partners, you’ll gain access to an international marketplace. Over 150,000+ customers have installed LIKE.TG’s AppExchange, and 91% of LIKE.TG customers have installed at least one app. Businesses of all sizes use AppExchange, so you will find customers for whatever solutions you provide. Being a LIKE.TG partner also means being able to leverage LIKE.TG technology. Successful partners choose to build on the LIKE.TG Platform for this very reason — they build 4-10x faster, benefit from increased productivity, and reduce time to market. Also, you will get access to a vast community of partners and a wealth of inspiring resources, news, and partner updates that will lead you through every step of your journey and beyond. Let’s take a closer look at how being a LIKE.TG partner works. What is the LIKE.TG Partner Program? The LIKE.TG AppExchange Partner Program enables you to build business success and meet customer needs by participating in a virtual community of other partners and LIKE.TG experts. Each partner contributes to and benefits from the constantly evolving network. Whether you’re an individual developer, a startup, a not-for-profit, or an established company of any size, you can become an AppExchange partner. The Partner Program gives you the knowledge, tools, and infrastructure you need to take your ideas to market. And you don’t have to be a seasoned LIKE.TG user to get started. With access to the LIKE.TG Platform you can use low or no-code, drag-and-drop development, and automation tools to personalise the customer experience. With the highest levels of security, you can unify disparate data sources and collaborate across devices and systems to bring richer experiences to your customers. Who can become a LIKE.TG ISV Partner? ISV partners use the LIKE.TG Platform to create unique software or software-as-a-service (Saas) offerings for LIKE.TG customers on AppExchange. Current ISVs cover everything from organisational intelligence to development operations, security, and user experience. While ISV partners are commonly B2B SaaS organisations, consulting partners also play an important role in the AppExchange partnership network. Skilled in specific industries, consultants can offer preconfigured solutions for common industry challenges. What are the benefits of joining the LIKE.TG Partner Program? Access innovative technology The LIKE.TG Platform has all the building blocks you need. From a suite of innovative technologies and seasonal releases, to lightning-speed execution, it enables you to develop your app four to ten times faster as compared to third-party platforms. Grow your business exponentially You can expand the reach of your business with access to over 150,000 LIKE.TG customers, 91% of which use partner apps and solutions. The opportunities for connection and collaboration are huge. Improve discoverability Once you’ve built your solution, LIKE.TG provides everything you need to monetise it and boost your marketing efforts. You can leverage the power of the Partner Community and the Partner Marketing Center to leverage resources to build brand awareness and go to market faster. Ensure powerful security Security is another significant benefit of being a LIKE.TG Partner — all your app’s infrastructure is supported by LIKE.TG’s rigorous security standards. By partnering with LIKE.TG, SaaS leaders position themselves and their business as competitive differentiators, future-proofing their business and setting it up for success. These are just some benefits that AppExchange Partners can leverage. Discover more of the benefits of building with LIKE.TG Platform as a Partner on AppExchange here. How do I get started? To learn more about how you can become a LIKE.TG Partner please visit our LIKE.TG Partner Program.
How to Turn Social Media into a Powerful Customer Service Tool
Trust is the connective tissue between a brand and its customers. As marketers, we play a special role in building trusted relationships with our customers. In many ways, we are the face and voice of the brand. Everything we say and do can build or destroy trust. This is why values-based marketing is important. As customers navigate a rapidly-shifting world, values-based marketing is more crucial than ever. In Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customer report, we found that 74% of customers say a brand communicating honestly and transparently is more important now than before the pandemic. Our research also finds that customers trust companies to act responsibly. Seventy-one percent of customers in Singapore and 83% of customers in Thailand trust companies to act with society’s best interest in mind. “71% of customers in Singapore and 83% of customers in Thailand trust companies to act with society’s best interest in mind.” Salesforce’s marketing team is now prioritising values along with products. We are communicating what we stand for and the actions we’re taking to live our values. That helps people understand who we fundamentally are as a company and what we’re like as a partner. With that, here are five ways we lead with values in our marketing. We hope you can find these strategies useful in your own communications as well. 1. We publicly hold ourselves accountable for living our values You may have seen our high-profile Team Earth campaign featuring Matthew McConaughey. By discussing our values on big stages at Salesforce events such as Dreamforce and Salesforce Live, we invite others to hold us accountable for truly living our beliefs in trust, equality, and sustainability. 2. We strive to communicate with integrity, authenticity, and transparency We share our values with the world because we know they are important to our stakeholders. We build trust by being honest, helpful, and relevant, providing information our customers and others need to make the right decisions for their company and community. 3. We practise inclusive marketing That means our storytelling reflects the diverse communities that we serve. It includes people of all backgrounds, regardless their race, ethnicity, gender, ability, age, sexual orientation, or religion. We challenge stereotypes and inspire people to be the best they can be. We use a method called counter-stereotyping that portrays people in roles that challenge prejudices. We want to dispel incorrect perceptions and showcase our belief that anyone can do anything. We keep accessibility top of mind for how our content is consumed, too. For example, all images in our content must meet accessibility standards, which include acceptable colours and fonts, plus alt text for images and closed captioning for videos. 4. We lead with sustainable marketing Our events marketing team uses QR codes that direct to downloadable schedules and content (instead of handing out paper programs). We give eco-conscious gifts. And recipients must opt in to direct mail (less paper, more digital). 5. We’re building a safe future for consumer data The technology world is changing at breakneck speed, and while innovation is great, sometimes it’s hard to keep up. That can turn into unfair and even risky situations. We are taking all possible steps to eliminate algorithmic bias in artificial intelligence, and we’re also protecting user privacy. “Relationships built on values and trust benefit everyone and lead to progress toward the sustainable and fair world we all want. ” Our values-based marketing also prepares our community for the industry and technology shifts that are happening now and coming our way. These include privacy changes, the new era of marketing analytics that focus on consumer privacy, and more. We want our customers and partners to know what steps to take to be successful and safe. The bottom line is that relationships built on values and trust benefit everyone and lead to progress toward the sustainable and fair world we all want. We can live our highest purpose as marketers by building trust through communicating our values with integrity and building values into everything we do. Find out what consumers and business buyers have to say about trust and values-based marketing. DOWNLOAD REPORT This post originally appeared on the U.S.-version of the Salesforce blog.
How To Unlock the Power of Generative AI Without Building Your Own LLM
Everyone wants generative AI applications and their groundbreaking capabilities, such as creating content, summarising text, answering questions, translating documents, and even reasoning on their own to complete tasks. But where do you start? How do you add large language models (LLMs) to your infrastructure to start powering these applications? Should you train your own LLM? Customise a pre-trained open-source model? Use existing models through APIs? Training your own LLM is a daunting and expensive task. The good news is that you don’t have to. Using existing LLMs through APIs allows you to unlock the power of generative AI today, and deliver game-changing AI innovation fast. How can a generic LLM generate relevant outputs for your company? By adding the right instructions and grounding data to the prompt, you can give an LLM the information it needs to learn “in context,” and generate personalised and relevant results, even if it wasn’t trained on your data. Your data belongs to you, and passing it to an API provider might raise concerns about compromising sensitive information. That’s where the Einstein Trust Layer comes in. (More on this later.) In this blog post, we’ll review the different strategies to work with LLMs, and take a deeper look at the easiest and most commonly used option: using existing LLMs through APIs. As LIKE.TG’s SVP of technical audience relations, I often work with my team to test things out around the company. I’m here to take you through each option so you can make an informed decision. 1. Train your own LLM (Hint: You don’t have to) Training your own model gives you full control over the model architecture, the training process, and the data your model learns from. For example, you could train your own LLM on data specific to your industry: This model would likely generate more accurate outputs for your domain-specific use cases than a general-purpose model. But training your own LLM from scratch has some drawbacks, as well: Time: It can take weeks or even months. Resources: You’ll need a significant amount of computational resources, including GPU, CPU, RAM, storage, and networking. Expertise: You’ll need a team of specialised Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) engineers. Data security: LLMs learn from large amounts of data — the more, the better. Data security in your company, on the other hand, is often governed by the principle of least privilege: You give users access to only the data they need to do their specific job. In other words, the less data the better. Balancing these opposing principles may not always be possible. Get articles selected just for you, in your inbox Sign up now 2. Customise a pre-trained open-source model (Hint: You don’t have to) Open-source models are pre-trained on large datasets and can be fine-tuned on your specific use case. This approach can save you a lot of time and money compared to building your own model. But even though you don’t start from scratch, fine-tuning an open-source model has some of the characteristics of the train-your-own-model approach: It still takes time and resources, you still need a team of specialised ML and NLP engineers, and you may still experience the data security tension described above. 3. Use existing models through APIs The last option is to use existing models (from OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, Google, and others) through APIs. It’s by far the easiest and most commonly used approach to build LLM-powered applications. Why? You don’t need to spend time and resources to train your own LLM. You don’t need specialised ML and NLP engineers. Because the prompt is built dynamically into users’ flow of work, it includes only data they have access to. The downside of this approach? These models haven’t been trained on your contextual and private company data. So, in many cases, the output they produce is too generic to be really useful. A common technique called in-context learning can help you get around this. You can ground the model in your reality by adding relevant data to the prompt. For example, compare the two prompts below: Prompt #1 (not grounded with company data): Write an introduction email to the Acme CEO. Prompt #2 (grounded with company data): You are John Smith, Account Representative at Northern Trail Outfitters. Write an introduction email to Lisa Martinez, CEO of ACME. Acme has been a customer since 2021. It buys the following product lines: Edge, Peak, Elite, Adventure. Here is a list of Acme orders: Winter Collection 2024: $375,286 Summer Collection 2023: $402,255 Winter Collection 2023: $357,542 Summer Collection 2022: $324,573 Winter Collection 2022: $388,852 Summer Collection 2021: $312,899 Because the model doesn’t have relevant company data, the output generated by the first prompt will be too generic to be useful. Adding customer data to the second prompt gives the LLM the information it needs to learn “in context,” and generate personalised and relevant output, even though it was not trained on that data. The more grounding data you add to the prompt, the better the generated output will be. However, it wouldn’t be realistic to ask users to manually enter that amount of grounding data for each request. Luckily, LIKE.TG’s Prompt Builder can help you write these prompts grounded in your company data. This tool lets you create prompt templates in a graphical environment, and bind placeholder fields to dynamic data that’s available through the Record page, flows, Data Cloud, Apex calls, or API calls. But adding company data to the prompt raises another issue: You may be passing private and sensitive data to the API provider, where it could potentially be stored or used to further train the model. Use existing LLMs without compromising your data This is where the Einstein Trust Layer comes into play. Among other capabilities, the Einstein Trust Layer lets you use existing models through APIs in a trusted way, without compromising your company data. Here’s how it works: Secure gateway: Instead of making direct API calls, you use the Einstein Trust Layer’s secure gateway to access the model. The gateway supports different model providers and abstracts the differences between them. You can even plug in your own model if you used the train-your-own-model or customise approaches described above. Data masking and compliance: Before the request is sent to the model provider, it goes through a number of steps including data masking, which replaces personal identifiable information (PII) data with fake data to ensure data privacy and compliance. Zero retention: To further protect your data, LIKE.TG has zero retention agreements with model providers, which means providers will not persist or further train their models with data sent from LIKE.TG. Demasking, toxicity detection, and audit trail: When the output is received from the model, it goes through another series of steps, including demasking, toxicity detection, and audit trail logging. Demasking restores the real data that was replaced by fake data for privacy. Toxicity detection checks for any harmful or offensive content in the output. Audit trail logging records the entire process for auditing purposes. How the Einstein 1 Platform works The Einstein 1 Platform abstracts the complexity of large language models. It helps you get started with LLMs today and establish a solid foundation for the future. The Einstein 1 Platform powers the next generation of LIKE.TG CRM applications (Sales, Service, Marketing, and Commerce), and provides you with the tools you need to easily build your own LLM-powered applications. Although Einstein 1 is architected to support the different strategies mentioned earlier (train your own model, customise an open-source model, or use an existing model through APIs), it is configured by default to use the “use existing models through APIs” strategy, which lets you unlock the power of LLMs today and provides you with the fastest path to AI innovation. The Einstein 1 Platform combination of Prompt Builder and the Einstein Trust Layer lets you take advantage of LLMs without having to train your own model: Prompt Builder lets you ground prompts in your company data without training a model on that data. The Einstein Trust Layer enables you to make API calls to LLMs without compromising that company data.
How to Use AI to Transform Your Email Marketing
The past few years have brought new ways for marketers to connect with customers, but email is still a powerful way to engage. In fact, customers say email still is their preferred channel to interact with brands. According to our research, the number of outbound emails increased 15% last year. The volume of sends is high because it’s driven by high customer engagement. And now AI in email marketing is helping to boost results even more. AI is helping us in many ways, but it’s still in the early stage. There are plenty of questions that marketers need to answer before fully taking advantage of the technology. How do we integrate AI into our strategy? How will AI work with our existing platform? How will we know AI will target customers the way we want? Read on for tips on how AI can help your email marketing, from generating messages to optimising their performance. What is AI in email marketing? How can AI in email marketing increase performance? What are the challenges with AI in email marketing? How can AI help with my email content? How does AI in email marketing improve ROI over time? What are the best practices for using AI in email marketing? What’s ahead for AI email marketing What is AI in email marketing? AI in email marketing uses machine learning algorithms to personalise content, optimise send times, and segment audiences. While predictive AI provides insights based on historical data, generative AI can use this information to create new, relevant content or solutions that are tailored to specific user needs at speed and scale. They work together to automate, optimise, and personalise the email marketing process. Both have the same goal: improved email marketing engagement and customer satisfaction. AI — which is embedded into many marketing platforms — can help you optimise and deliver great email marketing campaigns, as long as you understand how the technology works. For example, by analysing a customer’s response to various email campaigns and website interactions, AI can assign a lead score that indicates the likelihood of conversion. AI can also provide insights into the potential revenue generated by each customer over their lifetime with the brand. You can also prompt AI to generate profiles of ‘lookalike‘ audiences, enabling you to expand your reach to new prospects who are more likely to engage and convert. How can AI in email marketing increase performance? One marketer recently told us that generative AI is where “creativity meets innovation and personalisation takes centre stage.” It’s clear that they’ve tapped into its ability to create natural language-based segments for more nuanced messaging. As customers’ preferred communication patterns are identified, you can segment customers to deliver highly personalised and targeted content at scale. By using AI, you increase your chances to understand and represent your customer’s preferences. In doing so, AI not only enhances customer experiences but also makes them inclusive, ensuring a diverse range of customer preferences are represented. With its ability to analyse historical customer engagement patterns – such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates – predictive AI can identify the best moments to send emails to individual recipients. Subscribers receive emails according to their preferences, which minimises email fatigue and enhances engagement and loyalty. Which brings us to email A/B testing, the strategy where you provide different email versions to your audience to help you figure out which variation performs better. The responses readers take are clear-cut, meaning they choose between two-option reactions or actions, such as opening or not opening an email. When you use AI to test email subject lines, you can find out which one generates higher engagement rates. You’ll also maximise clickthrough rates which will help you fine-tune your messaging – keeping in mind the goal of discovering what works best for a given audience. One marketer reported how their A/B testing improved 10x using generative AI in email marketing. “Instead of testing only subject lines, I can also test user behaviour, allowing me to be more strategic with every send,” they told us. “Along with content, I also use AI in the design process. It helps me select images and colours that best resonate with my target audience.” AI helps get the low-expertise structure done so you can add the high-value content and your specified point of view. For example, you can ask it for a list of subcategories and their definitions for a topic you’re exploring. Get articles selected just for you, in your inbox Sign up now What are the challenges with AI in email marketing? As you adopt and adapt AI, you’ll see benefits like increased personalisation at scale, improved engagement, and reduced costs. However, there could be undesirable consequences if you don’t grasp the fundamentals.Safeguards must be in place to make sure AI programs are learning fast enough to keep up with changing customer behaviour. Ethical concerns about data privacy, security, and consumer trust call for compliance and regulations to keep customer information safe. Technical expertise is vital for successful AI integration, so training up to an AI skilled workforce capable of optimising tools and platforms can feel like a major hurdle. Good AI in email marketing relies on a solid data foundation. It also relies on making the outputs of AI usable in the flow of work. What data streams can you realistically plug into your AI email marketing efforts? How can AI help with my email content? AI can improve your email content by helping with personalised messaging. A marketer for a clothing retailer, for example, can create one email that showcases product recommendations based on purchases and browsing behaviour. The marketer can then prompt AI to quickly create ten new versions of that original email with the intention of catering to different customer segments. Now that you have all that email content, you can use it to create one-to-one personalisation. Keep in mind that your AI strategy should be connected to your data and customer engagement strategy for best results. You can use the historical data from your customer relationship management (CRM) system to integrate dynamic content, offers, and recommendations for individual customers. Based on how your customer interacts, AI can then power the next best email to continue the journey. Your AI-powered email content now understands your specific customer preferences and business goals, making it easier for you to tailor your messaging. This type of content creation simultaneously streamlines and scales the process of customisation. How does AI in email marketing improve ROI over time? AI models are trained to deliver insights from every customer interaction. Their algorithms continuously adapt and learn with each interaction, so you’re able to get better results from your A/B email testing. AI analytics can help you reach across your entire email dataset – or, as it’s more commonly known to do now, bring in data from other sources in your customer data platform (CDP). It works by combining customer interactions across email, website, and purchases – analysing preferences and trends. With your customer base’s specific patterns, tendencies, and connections identified, you’re that much closer to being able to segment them. It’s easier to target communication with segmented audiences. AI-powered dynamic content can enhance customer engagement – surging the potential for click-through rates. By tailoring email content to customer preferences, including product recommendations and offers based on data, AI helps to make sure that emails resonate with the recipient. It can save you thousands of hours and result in conversions. What are the best practices for using AI in email marketing? There’s no doubt AI email marketing is the wave of the future. Here are some AI fundamentals you can’t afford to skip: Start with building an ethical, strategic, and technological foundation. This means implementing transparent data practices, ensuring data privacy compliance, and fostering a culture of ethical AI usage internally. It also means establishing clear goals and plans for how you want to apply new AI advances. Having a roadmap for what you wish to accomplish should always be the first part of the plan. A few other tips: Use embedded, no-code AI features like send-time optimisation, content selection, and subject line testing. Work up to creating multi-variant emails allowing for diverse content versions catered to specific customer segments. Move into the realm of real-time personalisation, tailoring email content in response to immediate customer behaviours and preferences. Then explore the intricacies of building custom AI models tailored to your unique business needs. Start with your email data as a foundation. Grow your customer profiles using a fuller picture of each customer across marketing, sales, commerce, and service. The customer insights you get from integrating data into a CDP will help you create more personalised emails. Apply what you know about AI capabilities for personalisation to segment your audience. Learn how to creatively prompt AI to generate fresh content. When you do your A/B email testing, don’t test multiple things at once. It’s important to make sure you have a control group. Leading AI email marketing platforms have tools to automate this process so you can test continuously. Employ a system for analytics, iteration, and retargeting. This system should be able to connect your email performance to web and app conversions as well as commerce and sales data to optimise business impact. This is a key requirement to look for in your AI email marketing software. What’s ahead for AI email marketing AI is the key to making sure people open and read your emails. From creating content to testing performance, AI can help identify the best ways to improve your email campaign. AI is transforming the entire marketing workflow. For all its newness, there are plenty of lingering questions about how AI email marketing will improve and what new capabilities marketers can expect to see. Think about AI as a combination of a supportive friend and personal assistant — a tool that helps you put your big-picture goals in focus. AI can help test your email send times and content selection, including catchy subject lines, images, and colours. It can take the guesswork out of how to connect with your customers by helping deliver personalisation at scale. AI can help you move faster. Right now, pushing out more content is a lengthy process that requires multiple layers of approval. With AI at your side, it’s likely we will see a real decrease in turnaround time. In addition to automating manual tasks, AI will continue to help drive marketers toward more empathetic and thoughtful content. In this sense, AI can help you be more efficient and become better at what you do. These days, marketers are more focused on first-party data — information gained directly from the customer. Instead of relying on old systems like open-data exchanges to buy audience data, they are modernising the way they build first-party data assets through the lens of user consent. Using AI in email marketing is essential for acquiring that precious data. As data and AI become more integrated, the growing importance of trust in email cannot be over emphasised. We’re also seeing a reimagining of the creative process, with generative AI reaching a point where it can create 1:1 personalisation for every email – and not just for customer segments. In the next two to five years, marketers using AI will be furthering businesses to make better decisions in their email marketing campaigns. Most of the campaign process, from lead generation to final customer message, will be led by marketers with strong knowledge of how AI works.
How To Use Data To Boost Growth Marketing
The remit of marketing has expanded beyond branding to encompass business growth. Therefore, marketers have to adapt to new metrics and decision-making frameworks. Data integration and analytics to measure impact are the new essentials. Datorama is a LIKE.TG company that provides a AI-powered marketing intelligence and analytics platform for enterprises, agencies, and publishers. Recently, Datorama and researchers from The Leading Edge conducted qualitative and quantitative research with more than 1,000 marketers in Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, India, Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong. The results show how marketers in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region are responding to the new growth mandate. This research also uncovers the challenges marketers face with data integration and analysis, and their solutions. Here are four highlights from the Marketing Intelligence Report: 1. Growth marketing is the new focus The vast majority of marketers – 91% – recognise the major role marketing plays in driving revenue. This growth mandate is also reflected in marketers’ priorities. About 94% of respondents say that their priorities have changed to focus on marketing-led growth. Approaches to growth marketing, however, vary greatly: 54% of marketers say they think of driving growth and efficiency as a long-term play that builds equity and loyalty. 11% look for short-term gains including increased sales, acquisition, and retention. 35% describe a mix of long- and short-term goals. Time periods aside, the top growth-related sales initiative for marketers across APAC is connected customer experience across marketing, sales, and service. This means the top barrier – misalignment across teams on measurement and reporting – is essential to overcome. 2. There’s opportunity for those who can manage cross-channel data Many of the barriers to effective growth marketing stem from inadequate measurement of cross-channel activity and performance. The average APAC marketer is managing 7.4 marketing channels. A third experience challenges unifying data from different sources, and 64% spend a week each month – or more – doing this. Data-driven customer engagement and personalisation at scale can increase lifetime value and assist in immediately boosting returns of investment. This represents a straightforward growth marketing opportunity for the 71% of marketers who are still integrating data manually. 3. Optimisation requires investment and problem-solving Data accuracy – rated the most important factor for marketing performance – is fundamental to effective analysis and optimisation. It must be solved first, before other challenges can be effectively addressed. These other challenges include sharing and collaborating on data analysis (faced by 37% of marketers) and connecting marketing investments to business outcomes (faced by 35% of marketers). By looking deep into marketers’ processes, our research uncovered three major underlying issues with marketers’ data practices: 54% don’t have access to real-time reporting or daily reports. 68% don’t have fully automated cross-channel reporting. 40% operate in silos, measuring performance independently within each of their tools or relying on spreadsheets. 4. A data culture is key Marketers are optimistic. Sixty-six percent say they’ve made excellent progress in gaining executive support. Sixty-four percent rate the progress on aligning key performance indicators across teams, regions, and partners as excellent. In the data revolution, tools and processes are vital. But so is a data culture. People need enablement. They also need to be part of a culture that: Shapes decisions and actions around data insights at every level. Gathers and manages the right data mapped to desired outcomes – now and for the future. Prioritises the democratisation of real-time data so that it is not locked up in the IT department. By understanding and utilising these data integration insights, marketers can lead data-driven decision making to deliver better performance and return on investment. In this changing business environment, that knowledge is essential to business success and growth marketing. Find out more about how marketers are using data to fuel growth marketing. Register for the Datorama APAC Marketing Intelligence Report Webinar.
How To Use Marketing Metrics To Measure The Success Of Your Outreach
While creative copy and an attractive design can draw attention, and perhaps appreciation, it is data that helps you turn this attention into measurable value, say a purchase or signup.With businesses and customers going digital, there’s an abundance of data available to marketers from various sources. Defining and measuring the right marketing metrics make it possible to drill down to what data says about your marketing efforts effectiveness. The marketing team plays a crucial role in selecting, monitoring, and analysing these metrics to ensure they align with campaign goals and formats.What are marketing metrics? Marketing metrics are values marketers can monitor to measure the performance of their campaigns. These values can tell how effectively your marketing efforts are leading audiences to take actions that generate value. But blindly measuring any metric can present a partial or skewed picture of how things really are. A key area of focus in the evolution of marketing metrics measurement is assessing digital marketing performance, which involves tracking progress towards marketing goals and making data-informed decisions to optimise marketing strategies over time.Marketing metrics tell marketers what data to collect and analyse. The marketing metrics you measure should differ based on the channels, goals, and formats of your campaigns. This will reveal finer nuances of the engagement and revenues generated from each campaign over time.How measuring marketing metrics has changed in the last few years. Marketers are trying innovative ways to engage rapidly evolving digital-first audiences. This also drives them to adopt a wider range of metrics to measure their marketing efforts’ success. LIKE.TG’s 8th State of Marketing report says 78% of marketing organisations have reprioritised or changed their marketing metrics in the last year or so. But the marketing function’s underlying goals will always be the same –spread awareness, gain new customers, and continue to engage the existing ones.Metrics like revenue, funnel performance, and customer satisfaction are still the most popular. But KPI-conscious metrics like customer referrals, acquisition costs, engagement with content, etc., are increasingly tracked as well. Utilising tools like Google Analytics allows marketers to gain insights into website performance, track digital marketing performance metrics, and adjust their strategies for better results based on data-driven insights.Since marketing is more strategic now, its metrics must be in line with overall company goals. 70% of CMOs today align their KPIs and metrics with their CEO’s. There are various intelligent marketing tools today that are helping marketers become more efficient and targeted in their approach.Why is it important to measure marketing metrics? As more consumers go online and follow intricate journeys, it becomes harder for marketers to know how they can positively impact their experiences at every touchpoint.Measuring the right marketing metrics helps marketers know how consumers react to their campaigns and communications. Among these metrics, the ratio of Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) to Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) stands out as a critical indicator. MQLs refer to leads who have shown interest in a product or service and are deemed likely to become customers by the marketing team. SQLs, on the other hand, define prospects that sales teams have determined are ready for a direct follow-up and have a high probability of becoming a customer. Tracking the MQL to SQL ratio is essential for assessing the effectiveness of lead generation efforts and the alignment between marketing and sales teams. Based on these insights, marketers can amplify the efforts that reap the most benefits, and adjust the ones that are not producing the desired results.Metrics also help marketers prove the value their efforts add to the organisation. This helps them get bigger budgets and better resources to create a greater impact.Examples of common marketing metrics The significance of specific metrics and their benchmarks differ from industry to industry. But there are a few marketing metrics that marketers across industries keep a close eye on at different stages of their customers’ journeys.Some marketing metrics you can measure at different stages of the marketing funnel and on different channels include:Here are some common marketing metrics you need to know about:1. Impression share: Marketers can use this metric to determine how much visibility their brand is getting on a particular channel compared to the larger potential audience it can engage. An increase in impressions can lead to higher sales.2. Click-through rate (CTR): CTR is the number of times an ad or link is clicked on as a percentage of the impressions. Since ads are “push” campaigns, their CTR is generally low. About 4% or higher CTRs generally indicate that your messaging is relevant and compelling. But to ensure audiences’ journeys progress from here on, it is important to provide experiences that align with the expectations you set. There are many marketing tools that can help you monitor CTRs, some even in real-time so you can optimise campaigns on the go.3. Lead generation metrics: AI-powered solutions like Marketing Cloud can help marketers track leads generated from multiple marketing channels in a single, unified dashboard. These leads get prioritised automatically based on the likelihood of their conversion. Popular lead generation metrics include Visitor-to-Lead and Lead-to-Opportunity that measure the conversion of page visitors into ‘warm leads’ and ‘warm leads’ into ‘hot leads’ respectively.4. Marketing qualified lead (MQL) to sales qualified lead (SQL) ratio: MQLs are those that have shown the intent to buy, and SQLs are prospects that sales teams consider ready for direct contact. Your assets and ads may get several signups or clicks but not all these leads would have a purchase intent.Before you send your leads to the sales team, follow these steps to ensure they are ready to buy:Check the information they have sharedDiscard dummy email addressesVerify their LinkedIn profilesMake business email addresses mandatory (for B2B)Request additional information.A good MQL to SQL ratio shows that your sales and marketing teams are well-aligned. It reflects a healthy pipeline and how effectively your marketing teams can qualify leads.5. Cost per lead (CPL): CPL is the amount you spend on gaining a new lead from a campaign or channel. This metric can help you measure the ROI of your campaigns and allocate budgets where you see better results. Ensure that the amount you spend on measures like paid ads and monitoring social media is as low as possible while maintaining high acquisition rates.6. Lead-to-customer conversion rate: While gathering leads is important for your marketing and sales teams, measuring the number of leads that actually convert into paying customers is also important. This can help you determine whether your sales team needs a greater number of leads, leads of higher quality, or the right content to help them close deals faster.7. Cost per acquisition (CPA): CPA is the amount you spend to get a new customer. If the CPA is less than the revenue the customer brings in over a period, then your marketing efforts are on the right track. You can calculate the overall CPA of all your marketing efforts or for individual channels to inform budget allocations.8. Customer lifetime value (CLV): CLV is the amount a customer is expected to spend on your company during the time they are with you. It can include licence renewals, product plan upgrades (upsell), and buying your other products (cross-sell) depending on your offerings and pricing model. You can predict CLVs based on similar customer profiles and journeys seen in the past.CLV is important for proving how often quality is better than quantity in marketing. To maximise revenue, some of your campaigns should always be aimed at better engaging existing customers.9. Return on investment (ROI): Marketing ROI can be calculated by dividing CLV by CPA. If your CPA is high but CLV is low, you need to tweak your campaign strategy to increase the revenue generated from it.10. Action completion: Check if your audiences are taking the actions you are leading them towards. It could be actions like entering contact details, subscribing to newsletters, or clicking on a CTA. Action completion for different channels will be measured on the basis of different actions. So, if the action is subscribing to a newsletter, you would measure how many people are subscribing.11. Multiple touchpoint attribution: Not many people complete a purchase the first time they browse online. Usually, buyers prefer checking their options and coming back to make the final purchase.To better understand the impact of your marketing efforts at different touchpoints in your customer journey, you can use tools like the W-shaped attribution model. This model attributes 30% credit to first clicks, 30% to clicks that convert leads, 30% to clicks that create opportunities, and 10% to other interactions. W-shaped Attribution Model12. Company-focused metrics: Lastly and importantly, knowing how marketers contribute to the company’s business growth and profits is crucial. Company-focused marketing metrics help measure and assess how much of the company’s new or repeat customers, business opportunities, revenue, and profits – can be attributed to the marketing initiatives. Examples of such company metrics include Marketing Originated Customer Percentage, Customer Acquisition Cost recovery time, Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI), etc.There are also metrics specific to measuring the performance of campaigns on different channels or platforms:Website metricsWhen a person wants to know about your company, the first thing they do is check out your website – read blogs, watch videos, listen to podcasts, and so on. Measuring website traffic metrics is essential to determine how visitors interact with your website and if the website is engaging enough to move them to the next steps. You can track website metrics such as:Pageviews: The total number of views that your website pages get over a period. This number includes multiple views from the same visitor. Ideally, pageviews should go up with time.Unique pageviews: The number of views your website pages get from individual visitors over a period. The higher the number, the better is the website experience for visitors.Retention rates: Returning visitors indicate interest in content or buying.Average time on page: The time a visitor spends on a page on average. While a short duration of 30 seconds or so is not a good sign, a long duration is just as bad, as it means your visitors either find the page too complex or are idle on your page. A duration of 2-3 minutes indicates good engagement.Engaged time: Measuring engaged time is a step further from time spent on your web pages. This helps you determine if audiences are actively exploring your content or if your webpage is simply open on a browser.Some marketing tools also use heat maps to determine how much time audiences spend on different parts of your web pages. With insights like this, you can continuously improve the content and structure of your web pages to increase engagement.Pages/session: The number of pages a visitor views in a session. A session is an interval between the visitor’s arrival on the website and when they leave it. The more pages they visit during their session, the more attractive they find your content and the more likely they are to progress to the next stage.Bounce rate: A “bounce” happens when a new visitor visits a single page on your website and exits immediately without taking any other action. Bounce rates are an indicator of how interesting, relevant, or pleasing the content on your site is to your audiences. Besides this, other factors that can impact bounce rates are content placements, hyperlinks, CTAs, aesthetics, load times, etc. Ideally, your website bounce rates should be below 40%.Ask yourself if external sites are:Relevant to your siteConsidered credibleAttracting humans or meant for web crawlers (search engine bots that index web pages on the internet)Linking to spam sites or selling linksWebsite conversion rate: It is not enough to only measure the number of people who visit your website. To make the most of your marketing efforts, measure where these visitors are coming from and how many complete intended actions – like making purchases, subscribing to a service, requesting a meeting, etc.Once you have identified the actions you want to measure, set up custom landing pages that only converted audiences will be taken to. Ensure there is no other way to arrive at these pages, so your calculations stay accurate.To truly understand the impact of your website on your overall marketing success, it’s crucial to measure website metrics across different marketing channels, including digital and traditional channels, to monitor and analyse a variety of marketing metrics for internet marketing, email marketing, and social media metrics.Email marketing metricsEmails continue to be one of the best ways to reach and engage your audiences. Measure the performance of your email marketing campaigns with metrics like:Email open rates: Open rate is the ratio of the number of recipients who open your email to the total number of recipients. A high open rate is desirable, and a compelling subject line usually does the trick.Email bounce rate: It is the number of email addresses to which your emails do not get delivered. Hard bounces (typical to fake or non-operational addresses) and soft bounces (caused by temporary issues) should be measured to refine subscriber lists.Email click-through rate: Higher click-through rates indicate the effectiveness of your email copy, design, CTAs, etc.Unsubscribe rate: Watching subscribers leave can be alarming but approach this positively. When uninterested audiences leave, you are left with subscribers who genuinely want to engage with your brand. This can also reveal important traits of ideal audience segments.New subscribers: Understanding subscription patterns can help marketers identify the triggers behind the increased interest in your brand. This is also a content marketing metric that can guide your content marketing and promotion strategies through emails.Unengaged subscribers: Just like having inactive followers on social media, unengaged subscribers to your email lists don’t help you in any way. In fact, such subscribers can often give you a false sense of successful brand engagement. To maintain a healthy subscribers list, marketers need to periodically identify inactive audiences and cleanse the list. You can set up automatic unsubscribing to remove unengaged individuals from your list after a decided duration of inactivity and notify them.Social media metricsSocial media is a great platform for building customer engagement and deeper relationships with your target audience. But having thousands of followers is no use if they don’t engage with your brand’s content. Indicators like shares/re-shares, likes, comments, pins, etc. are a great way to determine audience engagement rates and sentiment. Social media engagement is one of the most accurate indicators of brand awareness, the other two being brand mentions and branded search.Let’s look at these metrics in a bit of detail.Engagement metrics: Likes, comments, new follows, shares/reshares, tags, etc. indicate active engagement.Reach: The number of times your content is displayed, leading to more people seeing them.Impressions: The number of people and times your content is shown to your audiences.New followers and follower growth rate: You can measure growth by calculating the rate at which your followers increase during a set period.Traffic: The amount of traffic your draw to your website through social media platforms.Brand mentions: Identifying where your brand gets mentioned can indicate the exposure it is receiving on different platforms. Add to this mention of competitor brands and you’ll find more places your brand can appear.Then, there are metrics that are used to measure success post-sales.Retention metricsTo raise your CLV, it is important to dedicate some marketing campaigns towards engaging existing customers. Here are three marketing metrics you can measure to ensure your customers stay connected, loyal, and happy:Customer churn: This is the rate at which customers stop buying from you or subscribing to your services. This is particularly critical for businesses that follow a subscription-based sales model.Revenue growth rate of existing customers: A rise in this metric shows that your marketing and sales teams are convincing customers to spend frequently or increasingly on your offerings. A fall, on the other hand, should be investigated immediately and addressed,Net promoter score: Rated on a scale from 1-10 (scores ranging from -100 to +100), this metric tells you how likely a customer is to recommend your offerings to others.Once you are familiar with common marketing metrics, it is time to determine which ones your marketers can start measuring.How your marketing department can set their key marketing metricsThe marketing metrics you choose to measure should be relevant to your business, industry, preferred channels, and campaign types. To determine the right marketing metrics to measure your campaign success, follow these two simple steps:1. Identify your goals: Know what you want to achieve through marketing – whether it is finding more leads, raising CLV, or anything else. Marketing metrics should be directly related to the results you seek.2. Stay focused: It is natural to want to know all the ways your marketing efforts affect your business. But when you want to see specific outcomes, stick to the metrics that help you measure marketing performance on those lines.Remember, a lot of your marketer’s time and effort can go into measuring and monitoring marketing metrics. It is best to focus on the essentials, instead of spending time on activities that may not be useful for you at a given point.Metrics make marketing successful Marketing metrics act as guardrails for your marketing strategies and activities. They ensure that you’re on the right track with your strategies and budgets and that no effort or marketing investment goes to waste. If you never measure the results at every stage, you’ll never know what you’re doing wrong (or right).LIKE.TG Marketing Cloud is a complete solution that can get you started and set you up for success, as all your digital marketing needs can be met in one place. It is driven by an in-built AI engine that helps marketers make data-driven decisions with speed and accuracy.Click here to learn more about Marketing Cloud’s features.
How To Use Slack for Customer Service To Boost Satisfaction
In our work-from-anywhere world, team collaboration is every contact center manager’s top priority. But the reality is that support teams are often siloed from important departments, expertise, and technology. Service agents toggle between too many tools while managers lack a complete view into workloads and performance. This prevents teams from delivering fast, quality customer support. There has to be a more human, collaborative way. That’s where Slack for customer service comes in. It’s designed to connect teams and mobilise the entire organisation to better serve your customer. The result is faster case resolutions, higher agent productivity, increased customer satisfaction scores (CSAT), and a transformed customer experience. Here’s how it works: Slack is more than a messaging tool It integrates with Service Cloud to bring service teams a collaboration platform where they access valuable customer data, key information, and cross-functional partners for faster resolutions. “With Slack for customer service, we’re now able to connect customer service across an entire company — from customer support agents to product engineering, DevOps, security teams, and other departments,” said Clara Shih, CEO of Service Cloud. “In today’s remote and hybrid work reality, customer-facing teams need to be able to easily communicate and collaborate with operations and incident management functions to rapidly problem-solve, resolve complex issues, and unleash the full productivity of the organisation.” Consider these four ways to use Slack for customer service: 1. Quickly help customers with an AI-powered knowledge base The majority of service agents (63%) still struggle to balance speed and quality, according to our latest State of Service report. One key reason: most work across multiple systems to access experts and knowledge. With Slack, agents tap into a collective knowledge base, without having to work across multiple screens. Work in Slack happens in channels, a home for all the messages and files related to a specific team or topic. As teams work through complex issues together, a searchable knowledge base grows. The predictive search function uses artificial intelligence (AI) to show the most relevant and helpful content to resolve cases, including knowledge base articles, logged files, and past resolved tickets. Over time, AI and machine learning (ML) understand the types of searches that your service agents perform to provide the most helpful information. 2. Provide personalised service to key business-to-business accounts with Slack Impersonal, one-size-fits-all service no longer meets customer expectations. Just like in our consumer lives, today’s business customers expect service to be tailored to their needs. But business-to-business (B2B) issues are more complex and may require an entire ecosystem of internal and external partners to resolve. Quick collaboration between all these parties is often a challenge. With Slack, you can transform the way you work by moving out of siloed conversations. Rather than having to chase down contacts and answers, the service team loops in the right experts — other departments, as well as external partners and vendors — in a single, shared, secure place. Customers can bring their tools, documents, and people with them, creating a new avenue for stronger customer relationships. For example, take the case of a vending machine company. A corporate customer calls the company to report that one type of candy bar keeps getting stuck. Nothing changed with the vending machine, nor did the customer change their candy offering. The agent brings an expert from the candy company into a channel in Slack Connect — a place for connecting with people outside your company — to figure out what’s going on. The partner explains that the company recently changed the packaging size of that particular candy bar. Next, the partner shares recommendations for similar products that would easily fit the vending machine. The agent relays this information back to the customer. Then, the agent documents the steps to help other agents handle similar requests. The agent goes one step further to help customers who may face similar issues by proactively alerting them to the packaging change and replacement options. 3. Provide proactive service during incident management The unexpected happens. Whether it’s a security breach or power outage, service teams need to handle large-scale incidents on the fly. Slack provides a single place for service agents, engineers, and whoever is analysing the root cause of the incident to come together. In Slack, everyone has the information and tools they need to take action as quickly as possible so customers get answers fast. That moves service from reactive (answering customer questions when they reach out) to proactive, which involves sharing key information with customers before they realise that they need it. “Using Slack unlocks proactive service — teams swarming and problem-solving on Slack are seamlessly connected with customer-facing teams who can view real-time status of issues and resolutions. This helps businesses proactively inform affected customers before they call in,” said Shih. 4. Solve tough issues by case swarming with Slack for customer service Seventy-seven percent of service agents say their role is more strategic than it was two years ago. This includes handling more complex cases. However, the answers to complex issues are not always available in your knowledge base. Slack connects your service console with the rest of your business so that experts come together to solve problems in real time. This sets off the case swarming process (also referred to as intelligent swarming, or incident swarming). Say a high-value business customer has a complicated request to split the shipment of a large order to multiple locations over time. The service agent pushes a request into a Slack channel for cross-functional partners, subject matter experts, and managers to swarm the case. They set up a quick discussion to get on the same page and document the steps to resolve the case. When teams take a collaborative approach like this on Slack, the customer has a faster, better experience. One of the unexpected benefits of case swarming is accelerated agent training. This is especially important in a remote work environment, where agents can’t huddle in person at the office. Less experienced service agents and highly-skilled experts come together to solve cases in real-time. Service agents access previously siloed expertise and acquire new skills on the job. How to get started with Slack for customer service Slack for customer service makes your support tools even more valuable by bridging the gap between service and the rest of your company. Instead of jumping to different systems and losing valuable time tracking down the right expert, service agents focus on what matters: your customers. See how to give your customers an all-digital, end-to-end experience they will love with Service Cloud and Slack. Find out more about Slack for customer service, and learn how to build end-to-end engagement from anywhere. This post originally appeared on the U.S.-version of the LIKE.TG blog.
How to Work With AI Colleagues and Build AI Skills
Growing up in a liberal household in Pakistan, Dr Ayesha Khanna was aware of the inequity in society and felt a responsibility to do something about it. Joining us on the Future of Work, Now podcast, Dr Khanna shared how these principles have influenced her career and led her to complete a PhD focused on smart cities. Today, Dr Khanna is CEO of ADDO AI, a specialist data science and artificial intelligence (AI) firm. ADDO AI provides advice and implements data platforms for customers in Asia, the Middle East, and the US. She is also Founder of 21C Girls (21st Century Girls), a registered charity that teaches coding and artificial intelligence to girls and women in Singapore. In her conversation with podcast host Jess O’Reilly, Dr Khanna offers insight into her work and provides advice on how to maximise the benefits of AI. Here are highlights from the conversation: Machines are the new team players Over time, technology has moved from the back office to the front office. Now, technology and business teams work closer together. However, there’s a new team player today and that’s the machine. “There’s the business person, there’s the technology person, and now there is the machine itself. We have to learn to work with these new influences, whether it’s an AI agent that supports you in your daily decision-making, or a robot in your warehouse,” said Dr Khanna. Treating AI like a colleague doesn’t mean believing everything it says. On the contrary, Dr Khanna, says it is okay to question what it tells you. The important thing is to listen. “Think about your normal office relationships. Your colleague will say something and you could be quite open to it or your instinct may tell you that it won’t work for your business. That is precisely how we work with humans and how we must work with machines. We have to be open to AI’s recommendations and experiment, but we also have to be critical and question the recommendations,” said Dr Khanna. Building skills and confidence in AI AI projects typically require data scientists and AI engineers, as well as experts in areas like natural language processing (NLP). Dr Khanna said there had previously been a shortage of skills in these areas, but growing interest in AI could help close the talent gap. In addition, solutions like Tableau CRM could lessen the need for large teams of data experts. “Where existing AI products can be used, then your job is to connect the dots. You don’t need to be a deep AI expert for that. You can have just a small team or have an advisory team who can come in and create a little bit of custom code. I think we’ll see more of this in the future,” said Dr Khanna. Asked about the skills required for the future of work and AI, Dr Khanna said it was important for everyone to be computationally literate. “The ability to read and write, do basic math and recognise basic coding is fundamental to understanding how the world around you works. Without that, you lose confidence,” said Dr Khanna. “There are many fabulous people who shrink back in board meetings, for example, as they don’t understand how technology is disrupting their business. It is unfair to them and unfair to their employer and employees as they have a responsibility to learn what’s necessary about the world around them.” Empowering women in tech Through her charity 21C Girls, Dr Khanna is now empowering the next generation with the skills and confidence to succeed in the future of work. She was raised to believe that she could do anything, and started the charity because she wanted other girls to believe the same. The charity now works with the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and Google in Singapore to teach boys and girls how to code. “The kids love it. They learn the basics of coding, but also problem solving through coding and that really is the key. Coding is another language to solve problems just like writing music or painting is a language to express your creativity,” said Dr Khanna. Dr Khanna also runs the Empower Program with Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Singapore. This program teaches girls the basics of AI and the feedback has shown it to be successful in building confidence about the future. “It’s very important we put in that work to upskill ourselves and be fearless. AI and technology is not rocket science. You can learn the basics and sometimes the basics are all that you need. So I encourage everyone— especially girls and women— to pick up that book or take that course and learn,” said Dr Khanna. Listen to the full podcast for more on Dr Khanna’s career journey and her perspectives on the future of AI. Access the podcast on demand at our podcasts page, Spotify, and iTunes. You can also listen over at the Singapore Community Radio Twitch page, Facebook page, and website. Tune in at 1:00 p.m. SGT Friday, April 30 to hear from Suraj Naik, CMO and Board Member of the Genius Group. Sign up here for our LIKE.TG Blog newsletter to get monthly updates on the latest LIKE.TG stories.
How Twitter Leverages Its Platform for Good
When this story was first published in 2020, Maya was Vice-President of Twitter in APAC. Her role changed to a global role in 2021 and her title was updated in this blog. In the beginning of the pandemic, people came to Twitter for information. What came next, according to Maya Hari, now Global Vice President of Global Strategy and Operations, was conversation and connection. “People have found themselves embracing technology very easily, very freely, and very deeply, and we have seen two interesting trends from that,” said Maya. “First, our audience has grown 29% year-on-year globally and [growth in] Asia is a big part of that. Partly due to lockdowns, people also found themselves with more time so hobbies became a large part of the conversation.” Popular topics in the past few months have ranged from gaming and shopping to baking and K-pop. There have also been many examples of people using the platform for good. Maya shares one heartwarming example with our podcast host Asha Popatlal. She also offers a crash course on what makes a good tweet and discusses how use of the platform has evolved this year. Here are key takeaways from their conversation on the topic of business as a platform for change: What is Twitter doing for good? Tell me a story that sticks out First of all there’s the platform itself. There are stories arising from this everyday because of the public nature of the platform and the way it connects people rapidly. One recent story is that of a 12 year old boy who was stuck on the streets of Delhi during the pandemic. He was separated from his parents who were in another town and he could not get back to them. Someone tweeted his story and within a few days, the word got out….good samaritans kept him fed and people raised enough funds to send him back to his parents. Everytime I hear something like that it warms my heart, but it is not just one story a day that we hear. This is quite normal for us. You can imagine that as an employee, it feels tremendous to [be part of] a business with this kind of purpose and ability. What does diversity and inclusion mean for you and Twitter? I define inclusion as the moment where we all feel like we truly belong and we are able to contribute and interact by bringing our whole selves unashamedly to work. It sounds utopian, but in the last few years we have made great strides as a company. The reason we do it is that we believe as a platform that every person in the world should have the ability to express themselves on Twitter. If we want all of these voices to be heard, we owe it to all of our users to build a platform and business that allows for that. What are you doing to increase the representation of women at Twitter? I am not the first female leader we’ve had in Asia-Pacific. My predecessor was a woman so there is a lot to say about the history of women leaders in the business. If I look at Twitter’s country leaders in Asia-Pacific, there is a very even mix of men and women. I feel very privileged to be able to say that and it is a tremendous credit to Twitter for having systemically focused on this, with things like equal and extended parental leave, to hiring practices that are consciously focused on bringing enough women into the pipeline. It is good to have that even balance. Men have wonderful ideas too, but they are made even better when we work together as men and women. How do you use Twitter for good when it comes to the environment? We have seen the conversation around the environment really skyrocket over the last two to three years. We have also seen tweets from consumers overtake corporate tweets in some ways. It is moving beyond corporate social responsibility (CSR) to people saying that [protecting the environment] is a good thing to do. So the platform itself is a big catalyst to bring about that type of activism on the environment, which is very important. As a company, we have focused on the spaces we own. This includes efforts to make sure we have green buildings and that we use renewable energy. We are also focused on reducing plastic consumption in the offices and running sustainable events. Technology companies have it somewhat easier compared to brick-and-mortar companies or consumer goods companies. The amount of disruption and change required in their businesses goes beyond the things that we’re doing because they also have to think about things like product packaging and their supply chains. It really needs to be a collective effort between governments, enterprises, and consumers to bring about that change. Listen to the full episode to learn more about how Twitter is using its platform for good. Maya also provides more insight into current conversations on Twitter and reflects on her very first tweet. Access the podcast on demand at our podcasts page, Spotify, and iTunes. You can also listen over at the Singapore Community Radio Twitch page, Facebook page, and website. Sign up here for our LIKE.TG Blog newsletter to get monthly updates on the podcast series and the latest LIKE.TG stories.
How UEM Sunrise Secures Data and Strengthens Customer Trust
As more organisations move to a hybrid workplace and accelerate their digital transformation journeys, they must do so in a way that strengthens customer trust. Protecting customer data and privacy is paramount, but far from easy. Organisations face a rapidly evolving threat landscape in which Asia is the most targeted region. They also face increased expectations from regulators and customers when it comes to handling sensitive data. How can business, IT, and security teams work together to enhance data security in the all digital, work-from-anywhere world? UEM Sunrise Berhad, a LIKE.TG customer, recently spoke at a webinar on Navigating the Security Frontier in 2022. UEM Sunrise Berhad is one of Malaysia’s leading property developers. Hasniza Binti Mohamed, Director, Digital & Incubation at UEM Sunrise Berhad, shared how the company ensures the security and privacy of customer data: Build secure experiences To protect themselves and secure data, organisations need to build security into every experience—even when innovating at unprecedented pace. UEM Sunrise Berhad makes sure to prioritise security when building new experiences. For example, Hasniza’s team works with the business to develop a standard operating procedure (SOP) at the outset of each project. This allows them to identify all security requirements and make them part of any tender process. “As a user of technology, you want systems deployed as soon as possible. However, from a security perspective, there are a lot of measures to put in place first,” said Hasniza. Take control of privacy through identity and access management Many customers are willing to share their data in exchange for hyper-personalised experiences. At the same time, they want to trust their data is safe. This is particularly true for personally identifiable information (PII) such as medical or financial records. To maintain customer trust, organisations need to take control of privacy at every stage of the data lifecycle. For UEM Sunrise Berhad, this includes taking the time to classify data and establish clear policies about who can access it. UEM Sunrise Berhad also has plans to introduce Privileged Access Management (PAM). “Users manage many systems within the business and even though they are aware of our SOPs and data governance policies, but there’s still the possibility of users sharing the permissions with other users. So, moving forward, we will use PAM to centralise the access at our corporate level. This will allow my team to monitor and take action to remove any unnecessary permissions,” said Hasniza. Be proactive in creating a trusted digital environment Proactively embedding security and privacy controls throughout an organisation can help to increase the pace of innovation while strengthening customer trust. For example, adopting techniques like data masking allows teams to build and test applications while protecting regulated data. Organisations also need to be proactive in addressing the evolving threat landscape. One way UEM Sunrise Berhad tackles this is through proactive threat hunting. “Cybersecurity attacks are increasing and we can’t always predict what’s next. What we can do is use proactive threat hunting with AI to simulate attacks and identify any gaps. This helps to bulletproof our environment and protect us against any new virus or breach,” said Hasniza. The bottom line is that as companies go all-digital, they need to stay safe, secure, and compliant. Building secure experiences, managing identity and access, and creating a trusted digital environment are essential to success.
How V-Key Became a Trusted Advisor to Global Businesses
In the all-digital world, smartphones have become almost ubiquitous in our lives. They have changed the way that we work, transact, and access information and services. However, the convenience provided by smartphones and mobile apps must come with the right level of security. That’s why V-Key exists. Founded in 2011, the Singapore-based cybersecurity company helps organisations secure their digital experiences. It has been recognised as one of Singapore’s fastest growing companies and a trusted advisor to organisations worldwide. V-Key’s ambitious journey from startup to a successful small business with global reach, has been backed by venture capital and driven by constant innovation. Raymond Lee, Chief Operating Officer at V-Key, recently joined us to discuss the company’s journey. Here are key takeaways and tips from Lee on how to fuel business growth. Listen to your customers and partners At the core of V-Key’s offering is a patented technology called V-OS that acts as a security foundation for mobile applications. Demand for the technology sparked initial growth for the company. However, its ongoing success came from listening to customers and meeting more of their needs. “Engaging with our customers, we realised they needed more than what we initially offered and that’s when we began to evolve our technology into the products and solutions we have today,” said Lee. One of these solutions is a new Digital Trust Platform that is set to help customers in multiple industries stay ahead of the evolving threat landscape and deliver fresh digital experiences. Lee said that it’s important to keep asking questions and listening to customers. Businesses should also seek input from partners who may own the customer relationship and can provide regional expertise. “When you start to expand rapidly and move into new countries, you may not have the intimate relationships you had with your customers in the beginning. Then, you need to listen to your partners because they will have valuable feedback,” said Lee. Take a macro and long term view As a startup, winning new customers was everything to V-Key and it was easy in the beginning. The challenge was that it didn’t anticipate what it would take to keep winning. “The pace of a startup is absolutely frantic. There are so many things you need to do and what you really want is to land new customers and expand to new countries. What you don’t anticipate is the kind of detail required to keep winning and to keep customers happy,” said Lee. For V-Key to scale, it needed a solution to help it stay on top of sales and marketing activities. The company chose LIKE.TG and now uses both Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud Account Engagement. The first provides an invaluable source of truth for V-Key and helps to inform its aggressive growth strategy, while the second is used to nurture complex customer relationships. “Executing tactically each quarter is one thing, but we also need to think about our plans for the next three years. LIKE.TG has helped us move from a micro view of what we need to do each week, to a macro view and helps us make better decisions,” said Lee. The focus on long-term business goals instead of daily operational challenges also helps V-Key stay focused on what’s most important and act as a trusted advisor to its customers. Foster the right culture Transformation is innate in the cybersecurity space, and V-Key needs to stay on top of the threat landscape, the competition, and customer demands. V-Key has learned that having an agile workforce that’s ready to pivot and take on new challenges is critical. “Our customers also have tremendous ambition and want to revolutionise the digital landscape in which they operate. There are no boundaries to the kinds of challenges they throw at us, which keeps us on our toes and makes sure we’re not complacent,” said Lee. LIKE.TG helps V-Key foster the culture it needs to scale by connecting different departments on a single platform and helping them operate as one. This is especially apparent in sales and marketing, where teams use LIKE.TG to collaborate on opportunities. “LIKE.TG reminds us on a daily basis that we’re all operating as one towards a common goal and that’s a game-changer,” said Lee. Get more insights from V-Key on how to drive growth and success in a fast-changing environment. Watch the webinar How to find, win, and keep your customers for future growth and success.
How Will Generative AI Affect Sales Reps’ Jobs?
Most reps I know are motivated by building relationships and bringing real-life solutions to customers, not crunching numbers or drafting emails. Fortunately, generative AI can help take the drudge work off their plates by drafting communications, conducting research, and streamlining sales process tasks. I don’t see it replacing reps any time soon, but AI will certainly affect the way we work in the coming months and years. More details on that below. What is generative AI for sales? Generative AI uses simple prompts to create copy (like prospecting emails) and make recommendations (like suggestions for quick-win deals) that are critical to efficient sales processes. It does this by analysing your existing sales and customer data to help you draft emails, or determine which messages or resources would help advance a sales conversation. All of this will likely be integrated into a CRM, where sales and customer data live. For example, let’s say you’re a rep selling accessories to car buyers, and you’re struggling to hook new prospects with your emails. You probably already use a sales engagement tool to add a personal touch, but maybe it’s not working well. Here’s where generative AI can help: It can streamline email creation by generating copy based on what customers are looking for and which emails have performed well in the past. You simply paste a prompt such as “Write a prospecting email for car accessory buyers” into a chat interface like ChatGPT. The AI system will then review your previous emails, along with industry and customer information, and craft a high-performing email you can use with new prospects. This is just one application. Let’s look at all the ways generative AI will likely affect your day-to-day work. 4 ways generative AI will improve sales We’ll see generative AI for sales used heavily in four key areas over the next year. Sales reps will use it to generate prospecting emails, get real-time guidance during discovery and negotiation, improve presentations in real time, and analyse data. Let’s dig into each use case. 1. Create prospect emails at scale A typical sales rep outreach process looks something like this: Review CRM data to find a qualified lead, head to LinkedIn to research their background and role, spend more time researching their company on Google, and draft a personalised email to catch their attention. Time-consuming, right? With generative AI, you can use text-based prompts to quickly research target companies for information to use in prospecting emails. In the same tool, you can use that information to request a draft of a prospect email. For example, you might enter a prompt like, “Draft an introduction email to my highest-value lead.” Then, you can ask for the best subject lines based on past email performance to increase the chance of an open. 2. Guide effective discovery Establishing trust with a prospect during discovery will always be a deeply human process. But humans aren’t perfect: Sometimes, we miss body language and verbal cues that show a prospect is struggling or has concerns. In an interview, Dan Heffernan, chief growth officer at Dale Carnegie Training, said he believes “empathic AI” will help with this during virtual sales calls. This technology is built into phone or video conferencing tools to analyse prospective clients’ speech patterns, speaking volume, and body movements to gauge mood and recommend ways to steer the conversation in the right direction. Here’s an example. While meeting with a high-value prospect, you start describing a new feature of your product — and the prospect begins fidgeting. Empathic AI tools can notice this and suggest the cause of the prospect’s discomfort, such as the imagined cost of this new feature. Easy to solve: As you continue the conversation, fold in a casual line to allay their fears, like, “This is part of the base price.” 3. Improve sales presentations in real time I’ve spent hours crafting the perfect presentation that will catch and keep clients’ attention. I’m sure you’ve done the same. With generative AI, you can use text-based prompts in presentation tools to create tailored decks and pitches in minutes. This isn’t common now, but with ChatGPT already making waves, it’s only a matter of time. We’re also seeing early versions of real-time coaching: AI-based guidance, integrated into video conferencing tools, can evaluate your live presentation to see if it’s hitting the right pain points for your prospect. Triggered by specific keywords, the AI system can recommend prospect-specific information to ensure you’re delivering the most effective presentation. Instead of just rolling through a standard deck, for example, AI coaching could prompt you to highlight a certain feature the prospect is interested in. It’s so advanced, Heffernan said, “you may even be prompted to go for the close.” 4. Speed up data analysis Sales reps can spend huge parts of their day generating, pulling, and analysing data — and with so much to look at, it’s easy to miss big-win deal opportunities. Generative AI can act like a personal data analyst assistant to uncover patterns and relationships in your CRM data almost instantaneously, pointing you toward high-value deals and deals likely to close. Even better, it adapts to changing deals and customer information in real time, helping you modify your sales approach to what works in the moment. Adapting to an AI world Generative AI for sales has a lot of pros. It can help you write knockout pitches and emails, make the discovery process pop, and analyse a slew of data in seconds. In other words, it’s a tool that can handle the busywork so you can sell more efficiently. I predict it will be an integral part of sales within the year. What generative AI won’t do is replace the human aspect of sales. Sales is inherently about relationships and will continue to rely on a personal touch. As Heffernan put it: With generative AI in the mix, “sales professionals will be freed up to hone knowledge and skills best left to humans — building customer trust, collaborating, and empathising to meet customer’s’ needs.” Get articles selected just for you, in your inbox Sign up now
How You Can Manage Field Service More Efficiently With AI
Customer expectations have never been higher. According to our research, 88% of customers say the experience a company provides is just as important as its products or services. Yet 82% of mobile workers struggle to balance speed with quality when providing field service. That’s why you need the best field service management software to make the customer experience as effective as your service. But what sets the best field service management software apart? It all comes down to which solution can deliver a quick return on investment (ROI) — and that’s where AI comes in. With AI and automation, your mobile workers can become more efficient in the field, helping you save money. Getting started with AI technology in your field service can help you get the most from your investment. Why AI is key for the best field service management software We’ve found that 78% of high-performing field service businesses already use field service management software with AI — and 83% use workflow automation. These organisations report improvements in worker productivity, customer satisfaction, cost reduction, and brand loyalty — all of which contribute to faster ROI.With AI, customer data, and your CRM unified in a mobile platform, your mobile workers have everything they need in one spot. They won’t waste hours searching for information or performing repetitive data entry. They can even generate a detailed work summary so they can move on to the next job in less time. The result? Greater productivity, a quicker return on your investment, and a better employee experience. In fact, 93% of mobile workers in high-performing organisations say job satisfaction is a major benefit of using field service management software. Get articles selected just for you, in your inbox Sign up now How to improve your team’s productivity with AI and automation Generative AI, a type of advanced AI that takes a set of data and uses it to create something new, can help your field service operations run smoother. Here are a few examples of how the best field service management software can help your mobile workers improve productivity before, during, and after visits. AI can proactively brief your mobile workers on past service interactions, asset history, offers, and communications, so they’re set up for success before they even head out to a customer’s site. Generative AI can create automated work summaries after jobs are completed, saving time for your team. Your mobile workers can use AI-powered tools like chatbots to schedule appointments, get real-time alerts, and find answers to questions. AI can suggest upsell opportunities based on a customer’s purchase and service history, enabling your mobile workers to grow revenue. New employees and contractors can onboard quickly with AI-generated knowledge base articles and guides. Meanwhile, automation can speed up workflows for creating a new account, placing an equipment order, or scheduling service. In fact, 95% of high-performing companies save time with process and workflow automation. How to get started with field service management software Even the best field service management software can only deliver results if your mobile workers use it to its full potential. So how do you get started? To answer that question, we talked to Kim Campbell, Lead Researcher, Research and Insights for Field Service at LIKE.TG. She’s accompanied many mobile workers on a wide variety of on-site visits through every stage of a major rollout. Here’s what she recommends to help your team succeed: Align on your objectives: It’s important to get your team and stakeholders aligned on what your AI-powered software needs to accomplish and why. “Asking the right questions can get you started on the right path,” said Campbell. “For example, what are your goals? How will the best field software management software help you achieve those goals? And how will you determine ROI and what success looks like?” Create a rollout strategy: Many organisations take a phased approach to rolling out new enhancements such as AI-powered productivity tools. Campbell recommends creating a pilot team to use the software before introducing it to the rest of the company. “A new platform can be a big change,” she said. “You need to build trust. So always ask yourself: how can we break this into manageable phases? How can we bring people along on the journey?” Set expectations: As with any new tool, productivity may see a temporary dip as contractors and workers learn new processes and software — but only at first. “There may be acute anxieties around change management for these technologies,” said Campbell. “Make sure to articulate how the software will help them. For example, how will AI minimise busywork once they’re up to speed?” Identify champions: Find tech-savvy team members who can inspire your field service team to give the software a shot. “I call them ‘friendlies,’” said Campbell. “They’re people who really care about the technology, and who might be more patient and adaptable as you adjust to a new software platform. They can help with the rollout by answering questions and demonstrating how the software works.” Accelerate training with video and generative AI: A comprehensive training program should include a mix of in-person training and video modules. You can also deliver AI-powered suggestions within your field service app to help your mobile workers ramp up faster. Here’s the bottom line: in a fiercely competitive market, the future of field service belongs to the agile. The most successful field service organisations will be the ones that improve efficiency, grow revenue, and adapt to customers’ changing needs. When your field service management software has AI and automation, your mobile workers are set up to successfully deliver efficient, effective customer service – every time. Be a great field service leader Improve your skills in people management, operations, mobile technology, and customer relationships on Trailhead, LIKE.TG’s free online learning platform. Start learning +5,800 points Trailmix Field Service Leader
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