CUSTOMER COMMENTARY

News About Finding & Keeping Customers

CUSTOMER COMMENTARY

News on Finding & Keeping Customers

MARKETING TECHNOLOGY

What Is Digital Marketing? Why it is important ?

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Digital Marketing is an aspect of online marketing, which uses digital technologies like mobile phones, desktop computers and other digital devices and platforms to advertise products and services efficiently. It includes search engine marketing, pay per click marketing, e-mail marketing, online advertising and many more. This kind of advertising is usually conducted through a website. The website is a medium through which clients and customers are presented with advertisements. This helps them make their buying decisions. The main objective is to get as many leads and sales as possible.

There are various techniques used in this form of online marketing. It can be classified under enhanced offline marketing, digital offline marketing and traditional offline marketing. Below is a brief description of each:

Enhanced Offline Marketing: This is another form of online marketing using electronic devices like mobile phones, PDAs, smart phones, laptops and other similar electronic devices. It involves offline marketing strategies like sending emails to the prospects who have visited your website. It also involves sending SMS to all those who have visited your website or have been registered for your online business. For this, you will need a list of your visitors.

Digital Marketing: This is one of the most effective ways to get exposure for your brand name. It includes the traditional offline marketing techniques like television ads, radio ads, print ads, etc. However, it also incorporates new techniques like email marketing campaigns, social media posts and PPC ads.

Knowledge Commerce: Knowledge commerce refers to affiliate marketing. It is basically a system of earning through referral commissions. It works by referring customers to a service provider or a product provider. Knowledge marketers use email marketing, telemarketing and SEO to make their way in this business. Knowledge marketers are relatively new and so many new players are entering the market.

Social Media Marketing: This is a new form of what is digital marketing. It is a technique of acquiring and nurturing customer relationships on the internet-connected devices like mobile phones, PDAs, smart phones, laptops and other similar internet-connected devices. This helps in improving customer relationship management. It uses different ways such as social media posts, PPC ads, email marketing and SEO. For this, you will need a list of your customers.

Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate marketing refers to a web advertiser who acts as a middleman between the merchant and the consumers. Affiliates are rewarded when their online marketing efforts result in sales. They can be rewarded per sale or per lead. You can use pay-per-click ads, banners and text ads on the web and mobile apps for digital marketing channels.

Media Sales: In the context of digital marketing, media sales refers to sales made from the distribution of electronic media. Digital marketers help brands promote their products using various media channels. Examples of media include live events, television commercials, radio advertisements, trailers, movies and music releases. The internet-connected devices that most often make these media sales are smart phones, iPhones and smart TV.

Offline Digital Marketing: Offline digital marketing means using offline resources (books, magazines, newspapers) to advertise products. These offline resources (books, magazines, newspapers) allow you to reach specific markets that are not reached by electronic media. Most businesses use print and broadcast advertising to reach a targeted audience. For example, super bowl commercials are mostly aired on tv, while book ads are mostly bought in supermarkets. By using these traditional media, you are reaching an audience that is not exposed to your product.

Content Marketing: Content marketing is another way of getting exposure through digital marketing. Content marketing means giving out free stuff to customers and potential customers. Content marketing is not a good fit for internet-connected devices because it takes too much time reading through emails, etc. Hence, most smart devices and apps have replaced email reading and browsing with instant news and information, apps and games, as well as podcasting, videos and audio books.

Search Engine Optimization: SEO or search engine optimization is a key component of any digital marketing strategy. SEO involves tweaking or improving websites in order to rank higher on Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines. A good SEO strategy helps you get found by consumers searching for your keywords. SEO services include article writing, social bookmarking, blog creation, website building, and website maintenance.

Other key elements in a digital marketing strategy include content marketing, offline digital marketing, and SEO. Content marketing is where you create original and unique content that is beneficial to your target audience. Offline digital marketing is where you promote your products by creating coupons, flyers, and billboards. Content marketing helps you build your brand’s reputation by giving away free stuff, coupons, and flyers. SEO helps you rank high on Google and other search engines by optimizing your website, articles, and social media profiles. All three key elements listed above will improve your online presence and bring you more traffic.

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What Are Say-Through Rates?

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The increasing popularity of interactive voice advertising and audio formats from social media platforms has led to the introduction of new metrics called say-through rates (STR). Like click-through rates (CTR), STR measures engagement, but for voice ads instead of clicks in emails or ads. Peter Vahle, forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence, calls voice an “ad format to watch,” with positive signs from say-through rates a reason for advertisers to stay familiar with the format and watch for developments.

What Are Say-Through Rates?

Say-through rates are a measurement of verbal engagement with voice ads.

When Pandora introduced voice ads, it needed a way to measure customer engagement and interest for the format. Enter STR. “Say-through rate is Pandora’s standard first-party metric for measuring verbal engagement with voice ads,” explains the music streaming service. According to Pandora, STR measures ad recall, purchase intent and the demographics of engaged audiences.

Should Advertisers Consider Say-Through Rates When Making Advertising Plans?

Yes, say-through rates will be an important measurement as voice ad campaigns grow in popularity.

As noted on a recent eMarketer Behind the Numbers podcast, which featured a discussion of STR, consumer excitement can mask how effective an ad format may be in the long run. STR data should give advertisers more insight into voice campaign performance and their audiences. Plus, as machine learning and artificial intelligence with interactive voice ads get better, consumers will be able to reply to ads to tell brands when they aren’t interested. The future of interactive voice ads even includes conversations. STR metrics offer another set of data points that can improve targeting and inform ad spend. Measurement of voice ad effectiveness will become increasingly important with the uptick in audio formats from Facebook and Twitter and many advertisers eyeing opportunities in this growing social trend.

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New Research for Mozilla Highlights Need for Disruptive Marketing

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Mozilla, the organisation behind the Firefox browser that puts people before profit, turned to global strategic insight consultancy The Mix to provide a consumer-led brand and communications strategy to inform and inspire their “UnFck the Internet” campaign.

Mozilla wanted to encourage Internet users to make an active decision about their choice of internet browser and to challenge the status quo of pre-installed browsers such as Google on Chrome devices, Safari on Apple and Bing on Microsoft. Their browser product Firefox gives users more control over their data at a time when privacy concerns have never been more prevalent, but awareness is very low and the barriers to switching significant.

The Mix were commissioned to provide both quantitative and qualitative research across three of Mozilla’s key markets, USA, France and Germany. Using their proprietary digital platform Cumulus, they conducted a detailed exploration of behaviour and attitudes of users that allowed Mozilla to build a rich, contextual understanding of, and very real connection with, their target audience.

Gemma Mitchell, Managing Director, at The Mix explained their involvement: “The scope of the Mozilla project was very broad, encompassing a global segmentation and both qualitative and quantitative phases to get to the foundational insights, to then sharpen our understanding around specific areas.

“Overall, our findings for Mozilla painted a picture of the internet now feeling a bit like the wild west, with no one company out there doing a good job helping users feel safe. From a sample of 1150 people, 77% worry about identity theft, 78% are worried about cybercrime, and 73% are concerned about being tracked online.

“Internet search has become so dominated by several leading brands that the concept of choice now seems illusory. Our research showed a disconnect between the concerns people have and the behaviour we observed. Often users are not aware there are alternative products or have a general apathy around switching, as we have seen in the instant messaging space”, she added.

Mozilla whose tagline since its founding in 2002 has been “internet for people, not profit,” used the campaign to promote its free and open-source web browser, Firefox and gave tips on how to avoid algorithms that track use.

Robin Karahash, Senior Marketing Director, Europe at Mozilla, appreciates the research and strategic consultation provided by the team. “At Mozilla, we strive to build a better, healthier and more private internet that respects user needs. First-hand research is critical to connect to users and understand their actual pain points. The research done by The Mix provided us with valuable insight and allows us to both support consumers and tell our story better.”

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CRM Giant Salesforce Reimagines Service Cloud for Customer Service

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Salesforce, [NYSE: CRM], the global leader in CRM, just introduced the next generation of Service Cloud — technology to support changing customer service expectations and provide connected, personalized service from anywhere on one digital engagement platform.

Over the last year, service agents moved quickly to work from their kitchens and living rooms, but relied on legacy technology — disparate, on-premise solutions and spreadsheets — that wasn’t designed to manage globally distributed workforces. At the same time, agents were reeling from a monumental surge in the volume of customer requests across all digital channels and new, in-demand experiences like appointment setting and curbside pickup.

Today, parts of the world are beginning to reopen — 53 percent of U.S. consumers plan to fly on a plane by the end of this year, and 97 percent plan to shop inside a store. Reopenings will also introduce a slew of new questions around updated policies, protocols, and safety measures. This adds a new level of challenge for agents, who will be on the frontlines, and who are already contending with increased workloads and more demanding customers. In fact, 82 percent of consumers expect to continue contacting customer service at pandemic-level rates yet just 36 percent of service professionals feel fully prepared to handle a surge in service and support cases.

“We are on the cusp of a great reopening of society, and companies know they need to move quickly to seize the moment,” said Clara Shih, CEO of Service Cloud, Salesforce. “While customers and companies alike are eager to return to in-person experiences, digital behaviors we learned and grew accustomed to during the pandemic are here to stay.”

According to a Forrester report authored by Kate Leggett, VP Principal Analyst, Forrester, “Customer service leaders must stay abreast of three megatrends in 2021 as they weather the storm: AI-fueled digital experiences underpin great customer service, modern agent desktops empower agents to best serve customers, and customer service technology enables resilience and sustainability.

Service from Anywhere with Service Cloud 360
For companies to thrive, they need to make every customer engagement — from online to curbside to in-person — more valuable and empower their service employees to quickly help, whether they are working from home, are in the field, or working in a hybrid model. Today’s announcement includes key updates to Service Cloud Voice, Workforce Engagement, Visual Remote Assistant and more, all applicable across industries from retail to manufacturing.

Modernizing the contact center
With many contact center leaders planning to maintain remote or hybrid work, old ways of working — like handling one support channel at a time or looking over a desk to ask a coworker or supervisor for help — are now obsolete. COVID exposed an opportunity to deliver great service from anywhere.

Service Cloud Voice brings together phone, digital channels and CRM data in one central view for service agents, and offers the agent real-time call transcription and AI-powered guidance on recommended next steps. For the first time, customers can connect their existing phone systems into Service Cloud Voice with Service Cloud Voice for Partner Telephony, creating a unified agent and digital channel experience to deliver faster, smarter and more personalized service.

Businesses have had to rethink their operating model and create a more flexible workforce. For example, with retailers seeing less in-store foot traffic, service associates working on the store floor need to have the ability and the training to also support digital requests in the contact center. But in this new environment, it’s critical more than ever to have the right customer service agent — with the right skills — talking to the right customers at the right time.

Service Cloud Workforce Engagement is a new workforce planning product that uses artificial intelligence to help service leaders predict how many requests will come into the contact center, and on which channels — including phone, email, web chat, text and social. Service leaders can intelligently plan staffing needs, matching agents to work based on their skills, availability and shift preference. Agents have a single workspace that integrates data, as well as real-time coaching and on-demand training with myTrailhead, an online learning platform integrated directly into Service Cloud.

Automating digital service
Eighty-one percent of service decision makers report that they are accelerating digital initiatives, and in the past year Einstein Bot conversations surged 706 percent, while service channels like chat, messaging apps and video support saw double-digit adoption gains.

Einstein Bots are intelligent chatbots that simulate human conversations and can quickly resolve common issues like processing a return or checking a flight status. In doing so, they empower agents to devote more time and resources to complex problem-solving and customer interactions. In just a few clicks with Salesforce’s low-code capabilities, customers can deploy a new chatbot by leveraging Pre-Built Einstein Bots to assist with service requests.

Scaling field service 
Field service is undergoing a massive transformation as in-person safety and new precautions become essential for how businesses reopen and effectively stay open. Office buildings, sports stadiums, and malls will need to ramp up to address throngs of people excited to be back together in the community again. Sectors including food service, manufacturing, sanitation, and utilities in particular are increasing their use of Salesforce Field Service to prepare for the surge in infrastructure and servicing demands — everything from elevator maintenance, lights and air quality systems as people return to work, to concert and sports venues, airports, and museums. These indoor spaces have largely sat vacant for the last 12 months, and require checks and maintenance before they are ready for prime time.

As companies continue to limit in-person interactions and prioritize employee health and safety, delivering trusted and effective visual support will remain important. Mobile technicians can reduce time on site by using Visual Remote Assistant, which allows technicians and agents to see what the customer sees through video support, so they can resolve complex issues from anywhere.

Salesforce customers deliver service from anywhere with Service Cloud
As companies pivoted quickly during the last year to serve their customers in new all-digital ways, they turned to Service Cloud to keep up with changing customer expectations and anticipate customers’ needs.

  • The Estée Lauder Companies: “At The Estée Lauder Companies, we look to bring high-touch service to every aspect of our business. Having a 360° view of the customer within Salesforce gives us the ability to build empathy and a connection with the consumer beyond product questions and transactions. With Service Cloud Voice, we’re further extending our high-touch services by digitizing our phone channel, allowing our advisors to deliver personalized service supported by automation and intelligence,” said Michael W. Smith, Chief Information Officer, The Estée Lauder Companies. “And now with Workforce Engagement, we can plan and optimize support across our channels globally.”
  • SmileDirectClub: “Empowering our Customer and Dental Care Teams with Service Cloud Automation tools has been key to creating a single view of our customer and resolving their questions or concerns more quickly and with personalization,” said Justin Skinner, Chief Information Officer, SmileDirectClub. “Service Cloud’s AI-powered workflows have streamlined things like our queue management process and made case tracking more visible for customers, saving our Care Teams’ time that can be spent focused on customer success.”
  • SONOS: “Things are always changing so being adaptable — empowering your people to be able to do what they need to do in the moment — is absolutely critical for us,” said Patrick Spence, CEO, Sonos. “Salesforce’s technology enabled us to both be successful having all of our employees working at home and also shift our business to direct-to-consumer, which allowed us to scale and support all of our customers as we hit a period of tremendous growth.”

Additional Information

  • Tune into today’s Success Anywhere World Tour on Wednesday, April 21 at 9:00 a.m. PT/12:00 p.m. ET to hear more about how Salesforce is reimagining the service industry and how Sonos is servicing customers from anywhere, digitally. Register
  • For deeper insight on customer service trends driving the strategic role of service, download the State of Service Report.

Pricing and Availability

  • Service Cloud Workforce Engagement and Service Cloud Voice for Partner Telephony are expected to be generally available in June 2021. Pricing information will be made available at general availability.
  • Visual Remote Assistant is generally available today.
  • Pre-Built Einstein Bots are currently in beta and are expected to be generally available in October 2021.

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Can CDPs Really Enable IT-Independent Marketers? 5 Perspectives for CMOs

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PHOTO: Mohamed Nohassi | unsplash

As customer data platforms (CDPs) evolve from technical, database-focused solutions to data-fueled customer experience enablement platforms, vendors have increasingly focussed their messaging on CDP-enabled outcomes: seamless omni-channel brand experiences, higher retention rates, better ROI. One prominent message has been around the ease of use for marketers — the primary users of a CDP. “A CDP should enable near-100% independence from IT by allowing business teams to perform tasks that previously required IT, such as advanced segmentation, attribute creation, predictive model usage and data activation,” said James Meyers, head of martech strategy at ActionIQ, a CDP vendor that has been stressing the importance of a marketer-friendly UI to enable more independence.

But can CDPs actually deliver that degree of independence? While there is no simplistic answer, it’s clear that vendor promises may not match user expectations unless several moving parts are aligned. Below are five perspectives on the topic from independent CDP industry experts, users and vendors.

1. Marketing Independence Depends on Several Factors

These factors include how you define “independence,” at what stage (pre- or post-deployment) you seek it, how mature your data usage is, the marketing team structure, the marketing use cases of the CDP, and the vendor-solution you finally select.

Tony Byrne, founder of Real Story Group, which helps enterprises make technology decisions said it’s a big win for speed-to-market and adaptiveness, “if IT or some sort of data office has been building and activating segments so far, and the CDP is able to successfully enable marketers to do this themselves.”

A marketer-friendly UI helps greatly, added Meyers, specifically if it ensures enablement of the least technical user. “Most of marketing is non-technical, and the faster they can ramp up their martech usage, the faster they can make a business impact.”

Marketers tend to learn what they need to and let IT handle the rest. As David Raab, founder of the CDP Institute said, “I don’t think CDP is ever really independent of IT, who control the systems that feed data into the CDP. It’s probably a matter of end-users learning a particular set of features that they’ll use. For example, some CDPs provide end-users with data collection tags [for websites], and let users modify those tags to collect new events without IT help.”

2. Independence From IT Doesn’t Mean Disconnected from IT

Building a trust-based partnership with IT is central to overall business success, not just CDP deployment. Meyers suggested keeping IT abreast of how data is being used, and giving them “ample credit for contributing to the project’s success.” Byrne added that no CDP is truly plug and play, and the data integration work will never end. “So you need a strong IT, data ops and marketing ops partnership to get the marketing data into the CDP, in the right format, at the right time, in an actionable way.”

3. Marketing Has Changed. So Should the Marketing Team

CDPs do make marketing independent, provided marketing includes data analysts and marketing ops roles to operate it (and act as the conduit/liaison to IT). These roles didn’t necessarily exist in this form or this degree of proximity with their brand marketing colleagues in the past.

For example, data analysts (distinct from marketing or ecommerce analysts) are specialists who know both — the company’s customer data and SQL — and will be able to answer questions and eliminate friction in data usage. “Since they’re able to write SQL, they can help source and validate data within the CDP — tasks traditionally fulfilled by someone in IT,” said Meyers.

Even the most marketer-friendly CDPs require fairly advanced skills, education and training for a business person to master. Daniele Sghedoni, who led the build of an open CDP based on Google Cloud Platform for Benetton, agreed that a sound marketing ops team is the crux for marketing being able to derive value from the CDP deployment.

But these technical roles, experts caution, need to be well-entrenched with business users to avoid creating even more silos. “In RSG’s experience, most licensees end up delegating this work to a small team of marketing ops specialists, and that can create a kind of bottleneck in itself,” said Byrne.

4. Marketers Don’t Necessarily Want Total Independence

Arguing the very notion that independence from IT is a goal for marketers, Raab added that the need for independence really depends on the task. “Many CDPs have extensive analytical, campaign management, and personalization features that are specially designed for end-users.” Those usually work out fine. The issues, he said, are mainly with data management features such as adding new sources or data elements. “My sense is that those still require some technical skill, so they are handled by martech staff where available, or IT or the vendor. This is not necessarily a problem; I don’t think many marketers really want to do those sorts of things for themselves.”

It seems what marketers want is not so much “independence from IT,” but rather a system that lets them be truly agile, flexible, market-responsive and scalable. They want the freedom to execute without waiting for weeks to get the datasets they need to run experiments or activate campaigns. They will likely address that need with smoother alignment with IT and data, better trained marketing ops staff, and a user-friendly CDP.

5. You Can Build for Independence

With growing data sources, volumes and formats, marketing’s reliance on IT and Data Ops will likely grow rather than lessen. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Byrne advises marketing ops to instead become more conversant with the data, be able to better leverage it and more clearly articulate needs as the scope expands. And critically, be able to incorporate non-marketing touchpoints into the mix for more customer-centric journeys.

With easy access to the CDP data once it is loaded, marketers can create exports or execute segmentation, campaigns, and other marketing activities if they have clarity on their most pressing use-cases. “It is most important to understand how the CDP is intended to be used and ensure everything is in place to make that happen, including user training,” said Raab.

Doing homework before vendor selection is another way to enable post-deployment success. The vendor should be able to provide a truly flexible data model. It’s important because “no user has a crystal ball of all the data points they’ll need to fulfill future use cases. You need to give them flexibility to make data adjustments as needed,” said Meyers.

Marketers Will Still Work With IT — And That’s OK

There you have it. CDPs wont have marketers magically creating intelligent, real-time campaigns all by themselves anytime soon. For CDP outcomes that get better and stronger over time, a strong and sustained partnership between IT, data ops and marketing ops is the only sustainable pathway. The CMO, CDO and CTO would rather invest in ways to streamline processes, eliminate bottlenecks, and improve efficiency and speed as scale and use cases grow, than get hung up on independence. The operative word should really be “interdependence.”

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Social Media Content Marketing Technology

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Social media content marketing is expected to grow to US$13.8 billion in 2021, perhaps owing to higher daily digital media consumption following the global pandemic and a new gig economy.

Digital marketing technologies have entered a major historical inflection point. Recent years have seen explosive growth in social media apps, with platforms such as Facebook and YouTube amassing more than one billion users each. 

With a global population estimated at 7.7 billion, and upwards of 3.5 billion active social media users, one in three people worldwide can be found on social media. Digital media consumption has skyrocketed and the shift from traditional to digital media has led to more than US$291 billion spent on digital advertising in 2020. As brands race to meet consumers where they are, social media content marketing software have seen billions of dollars once allocated toward traditional advertising. Especially when disrupting the traditional creative supply chain, with clear efficiencies in time for production, and distribution, cost of development and overall ROI

Marketing technology, also known as martech, has become a digital marketing staple. In 2019, the global digital marketing software sector was valued at US$43.8 billion. The market is expected to grow with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.4 percent between 2020 and 2027. According to the latest Gartner CMO Spend Survey, digital channels accounted for nearly 80 percent of marketing budgets in 2020, with CMOs spending 22 percent on digital advertising — including display, video and social media advertisements, as well as paid search — while another 59 percent is allocated toward website, SEO and mobile marketing. Martech currently accounts for the largest proportion of marketing spend, in comparison to traditional media and in-house labor.

This INNspired article is brought to you by:

DGTL Holdings (TSXV:DGTL) is a venture capital asset management company focused on acquiring and accelerating transformative and disruptive social media, marketing and advertising technologies (martech / adtech), powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI).Send me an Investor Kit

Martech targets a wide range of marketing tasks, including advertising, analytics, content management and customer relationship management. Innovations like automation and artificial intelligence can help reduce the number of man-hours required to execute a marketing strategy while producing actionable insights into the ROI of a company’s marketing efforts. These days, marketing teams are focused on a new way to connect with potential audiences: content-creators and online web publishers that position brands on recommendation, versus suggestion.

The rise of influencer marketing

One area of digital marketing and advertising that has seen exponential growth over recent years is social media content management software. A decade ago, social media marketing was limited to celebrities and a handful of dedicated bloggers. Today, influencer marketing has grown to include a number of social media activities, but primarily features endorsements and product mentions from influencers or individuals with an established social media presence who are often viewed as experts within their niche. Social media recommendations act as a form of social proof to potential customers.

Social media content marketing is expected to grow to US$13.8 billion in 2021, a considerable increase from US$1.7 billion in 2016, and a sizable jump from US$9.7 billion in 2020, perhaps owing to higher daily digital media consumption following the global pandemic and a new gig economy where ecommerce leads consumer spending. According to a report by eMarketer, the pandemic has accelerated trends that were already underway, including a preference among consumers for “unfiltered” content or content that is considered more organic and relevant.

The rise of apps like TikTok and Instagram have contributed to the popularity of “everyday influencers.” Over the past year, consumers have been spending more time at home and on social media, where they interact with content creators. Influencers offer brands a simple, cost-effective way to reach target audiences during a time when large-scale production may be challenging.

According to Mediakix data, the influencer marketing industry is on track to be worth up to US$15 billion by 2022. Influencer marketing is now a must-have marketing strategy, with brands categorizing individual influencers according to their reach (overall engagement) and niche (engagement with a brand’s target audiences). While every social media software platform offers its own breed of content publishers, Instagram represents the gold standard, with nearly 79 percent of brands prioritizing the app for influencer marketing campaigns. Other marketing hubs include Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn. Tiktok now leads as the most downloaded application worldwide, and on track to hit more than a billion users.

A study by Tomoson found that influencer marketing yields a $6.50 ROI for every dollar spent. With today’s consumers cutting out the noise of traditional advertising, roughly 40 percent of survey respondents reported purchasing a product online after seeing it used by an influencer on YouTube, Instagram or Twitter. Influencer campaigns have evolved to include tactical solutions like discount codes, affiliate marketing, competitions, giveaways and other ways to boost brand awareness and drive sales. Up-and-coming trends include a transition from traditional video ads to video content, which can include product teaser campaigns, exclusive reviews by key influencers, unboxing videos and similar types of organic content.

Major players to watch

As consumers spend more time online, paid promotions and influencer partnerships have become essential to brands that want to get seen and stay relevant. Clearly, the digital landscape is shifting rapidly, and many brands are now relying on influencer marketing platforms to manage every aspect of their social media campaigns.

Companies such as DGTL Holdings (TSXV:DGTL) specialize in helping brands and agencies optimize their digital marketing efforts by acquiring and advancing emerging technologies in digital media, martech and adtech, powered by AI. The company’s flagship solution #HASHOFF is a scalable, self-service software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that enables marketers to identify and recruit freelance creatives for content creation, sponsorship deals, experiential activations and more. The enterprise-level CMS platform allows marketing teams to identify the best influencers to represent their brand based on context signals and machine learning. At the Super Bowl XXI, #HASHOFF activated micro-influencers (influencers with a relatively low follower count, but who have garnered a highly engaged audience) to drive more than one million brand engagements.

Marketing technology encompasses more than just social media content management and marketing. The COVID-19 pandemic sparked rapid digital transformation for many businesses, with martech platforms such as Zapier, Clearbit, MadKudu and Segment among the fastest-growing software companies at the moment. IZEA Worldwide (Nasdaq:IZEA) was one of the first of its kind to go public in the subsector, and now trades at an average 10-15x price to sales.

Takeaway

As brands continue to recognize the value offered by social media CMS software when it comes to reach, impact and ROI, the now multi-billion-dollar influencer marketing industry remains positioned for explosive growth. Investors should pay special attention to innovative technology platforms that support companies as they navigate social media, partnerships and major brand clients.

This INNSpired article is sponsored by DGTL Holdings (TSXV:DGTL). This INNSpired article provides information which was sourced by the Investing News Network (INN) and approved by DGTL Holdings in order to help investors learn more about the company. DGTL Holdings is a client of INN. The company’s campaign fees pay for INN to create and update this INNSpired article.

INN does not provide investment advice and the information on this profile should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. INN does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company profiled.

The information contained here is for information purposes only and is not to be construed as an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of securities. Readers should conduct their own research for all information publicly available concerning the company. Prior to making any investment decision, it is recommended that readers consult directly with DGTL Holdings and seek advice from a qualified investment advisor.

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Hyperscience Unveils A New Class of Intelligent Automation

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The Hyperscience Platform unlocks efficiency with 5x faster throughput and 90% cost reductions

Hyperscience, the automation company, today announced the launch of its enhanced intelligent automation platform. Providing ease of integration, configurability and accuracy, the Hyperscience Platform can automate increasingly complex document processes from input to actionable data. Elevating some of the world’s largest organizations across banking and financial services, insurance, healthcare and government, Hyperscience delivers 99.5% accuracy to empower organizations, customers, and end consumers everywhere.

“Our technology has an incredible impact on our customers by automating document processing workflows that have historically been error-prone, not scalable and expensive to operate”

“To solve tomorrow’s automation challenges today, we must connect humans and artificial intelligence to create better outcomes, for our customers and their end users,” said Peter Brodsky, CEO and co-founder, Hyperscience. “After experiencing a milestone year of company growth, including 3x ARR year-over-year and 10x increase in platform usage, it is clear to our team that the need for our technology has never been greater. The Hyperscience Platform creates a world where machines and humans work side-by-side in a way that delivers more accurate data and efficient workflows. It’s an exciting opportunity to streamline operations, solve customers’ business challenges, and step even further into the future of work.”

The acceleration to adopt these solutions is a cross-industry phenomenon, as leading organizations continue to be tasked with manually deriving information from highly complex documents and disparate sources. According to a report published by Information Services Group, eight out of 10 U.S. enterprises have tried or adopted intelligent business automation solutions to future-proof their businesses. The Hyperscience Platform increases overall customer value by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), automation and humans to make repetitive tasks and processes more efficient, accurate and impactful, and resulting data more actionable.

“Powering enterprise organizations will require solutions that complement human capabilities—improving outcomes accurately and efficiently,” said Elliott Robinson, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners and Hyperscience Board Member. “The Hyperscience Platform is a complete, intelligent automation platform that reduces operational complexity and improves the business and customer experience. On the heels of incredible company and customer growth, I look forward to seeing all of the impactful results to come.”

New and improved capabilities in the Hyperscience Platform include:

  • Easier Integration: The Hyperscience Platform is not an add-on or layered tool, it is an integrated one. Tailor complex document processes and seamlessly integrate with existing systems to ensure extracted information becomes actionable data.
  • Best-in-Class Data Extraction: Hyperscience’s proprietary ML technology garners high-accuracy extraction, bolstered through API and industry database connections, driving higher automation, lower error rates, and greater efficiencies.
  • Built for Business Users: Without any added complexity, users can scale to more business lines, creating layouts in under 30 minutes with no additional IT costs. The improved user interface and streamlined task queue increase the efficiency of data keying teams.
  • Shorter Time-to-Value: Modularization and ease of integration are critical to achieving ROI and unlocking cost and efficiency gains from automation technology. The Hyperscience Platform enables continuous performance improvements, increasing throughput without sacrificing accuracy.
  • Unstructured Documents: Valuable information in business is often left on the table—not anymore. Today’s release strengthens Hyperscience’s ability to convert semi- and unstructured document formats into usable data, streamlining data-centric processes ranging from mortgage and loan origination to health insurance claims and more.

“Our technology has an incredible impact on our customers by automating document processing workflows that have historically been error-prone, not scalable and expensive to operate,” said Francisco Uribe, VP of Product, Hyperscience. “Today’s release of the Hyperscience Platform further improves the impact we can make on organizations, employees, customers and the end consumers. I am proud of the team and the steadfast dedication to developing innovative technology today that truly guides our ambitious company vision.”

Originally Appeared Here

Hawke Ventures raises $5.6M to back digital marketing startups

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Hawke Ventures, the investment arm of marketing consultancy Hawke Media, is announcing that it has closed its first $5.6 million venture fund.

Managing Partner Drew Leahy acknowledged that the firm’s focus on marketing technology isn’t exactly in high demand among other VCs right now.

“People are running away from martech […] but that’s our circle of confidence,” Leahy told me. “If you look at the biggest companies in the world, even Walmart now, they are all martech companies at the end of the day.”

While some might quibble with that description, it’s hard to deny the central role that marketing and advertising play for the internet’s biggest platforms. As for how that translates to Hawke’s strategy, Leahy said the firm is writing checks of between $100,000 and $250,000, with the possibility of follow-on investments.

Leahy, who was previously co-founder and CMO at SnapSuits.com, said that the fund has its roots in the strategic angel investing that he was doing for Hawke Media, ultimately working with the company’s CEO Erik Huberman and COO Tony Delmercado to raise a fund to make bigger bets.

He added that beyond writing checks, the firm can offer access to a network of 51 limited partners who invested in the fund. Those LPs include Deathwish Coffee founder Michael Brown, MVMT Watches founder Jack Kassan, former VaynerMedia executive Jeff Nicholson, husband-and-wife Holly (an actress) and Rodney Pete (a former NFL player), Jill Zarin of “The Real Housewives of New York City,” Video Genome Product founder Xavier Kochhar and MarketShare founder Jon Vein.

And while most firms would say that they’re trying to fund the next Facebook or Google, Leahy said he has a slightly different focus: “We’re trying to build a different venture firm, that’s not about what we think the next the big idea is, but is focused on building actual technology that we can use ourselves.”

That also means the firm is mostly focused on products that can be used by small and medium businesses.

“We’re not an enterprise martech fund, we’re a small- and medium-sized business martech fund,” Leahy said. “We’re looking for pieces of technology that hundreds of thousands of users can be a part of.”

Early investments include SMS marketing company Postscript and analytics company Yaguara (acquired by Chord).

“As one of the earliest investors in Postscript, Hawke Ventures has worked with us since the beginning,” said Postscript President Alex Beller in a statement. “The entire Hawke org has been value-add since day one, and we’re proud to continue our partnership with Hawke as we build the definitive platform for Conversational Commerce.”

Originally Appeared Here

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