Archive for the ‘articles’ category

The way forward for Marketing Automation

July 3rd, 2011

Today’s business environment is being driven by technology and relationships. Technology is very much driven by computers as well as the Internet. Relationships look like driven by trust. Are we come far enough to say that any of us trust technology? Step one in creating a trusting relationship is to touch base and connect. That connection, some it is known as Marketing, is easily accomplished through technology. The circle seems complete. Or would it?

The task with today’s Marketing initiatives gets our hands around the various and exciting approaches to connect, so that we begin in order to create those trusting relationships. The marketing mix is without a doubt in existence. Let’s mention a number of; direct mail (both shotgun and personalized), email blasts, streaming video, interactive and personalized URLs, outbound and inbound call campaigns (both live and automated), online promotions, interactive telepromotions, subsciber lists generation, internet surveys, telesurveys, radio, mobile text messages, other great tales…

The way forward for Marketing will most surely evolve in to a true melding of technology and relationships. The online world, accompanied by the interactive marketing movement, can certainly make that evolution successful. Picture this scenario…

You might be a Marketing Manager for the nationwide manufacturer of widgets. You are given a project that entails coordinating a National Advertising campaign for over 2500 dealers. How on this planet will you launch and track all the various marketing mediums then determine if they will really work across your 2500 widget dealers? Now mind you, these dealers aren’t card carrying rocket scientists. These were mostly the, “Blanch get me a beer” type of widget dealers. This campaign would have to be easy, intuitive and a lot coming from all, cost-effective. There are many direct and supporting marketing mediums in this particular modern of technology. How do you make direct mail work intelligently with email? How can you make email work intelligently with private-branded, interactive websites? How does one make those sites trigger an outbound call campaign? How can you track the inbound calls that this direct mail and email generated? How can you fit radio and cable television commercials into this all? Or will you? Oh, in addition, you should definitely maintain the brand image and the corporate creative assets in line and on message. So why do Chief Marketing Officers (CMO’s) simply have a typical lifespan of under couple of years? Will it be having less metrics and proper accountability? Will it be lacking their capability to believe strategically and work holistically? What happens if there was a method to address every one of these logistical challenges?

We’re living in an interval that’s produced extremely talented business resources. The worldwide economy includes a insightful software and database architects, engineers and developers. You can find destined to be talented, visionary leaders which will discover the logistics on this “marketing meld”. The ideal solution to the above mentioned scenario might look similar to this…

There will be a back-end, administrative web portal the Marketing Manager (let’s phone him constantly Joe) logs into. Joe should be able to build an individual, manufacturer branded web portal for that dealers to get into Twenty-four hours a day, seven days each week. Joe would then build and name a marketing and advertising campaign. This campaign is going to be modular anyway, allowing Joe to assign specific marketing medium towards the campaign. One campaign might let the widget dealers to produce direct mail, targeted HTML email and “drop-date + 4″ outbound call campaigns with pre-approved scripts. Most organizations could never coordinate this outbound call campaign to 10,000 direct mail recipients on time. In case this marketing platform is integrated that has a Mid-West, accent neutral contact center, we’ve got another story on our hands, yes? Another campaign probably have personalized direct mail through an inbound telepromotions number about the direct mail piece. The database for the platform will be established to have recorded messages from local sports personalities based upon the toll-free number around the card. Give a PIN for the direct mail piece with a opportunity to win and suddenly your response rate skyrockets. These marketing mediums, who have recently been included in the physical Marketing-On-Demand platform, might be “published” on the manufacturer’s branded web portal. These websites are the entrance approach to widget dealer nirvana. This complete process will maintain send out brand logos, palettes, fonts, content message and then any legalize that is required. Joe the Marketer can create the branded web site as well as the different campaigns before the actual campaign launch date. The automation will kick-in on the assigned launch time. The widget dealers are satisfied (they do not ought to think), Joe the Marketer is satisfied (he’s golf), the consumer only receives information that reflects their buying needs and the CFO, CMO, etc. are able to access online daily, weekly and monthly reports showing the strength of each marketing medium. All the metrics and data are “plugged into” the manufacturer’s legacy Accounting, Customer Relationship and Inventory Management systems. This integration allows the “C-Men” to generate the right strategic decisions in a more timely fashion. Seeking to of this whole scenario is the platform is being accessed by using a centralized, secure, multiple firewall protected, carrier grade data center. The scenario gets a business expense, not only a capital expenditure and the result can be a dynamic, revenue generating business tool. This scenario will probably happen in ab muscles not too distant future. Technology and Relationships demand so.

Technology along with the Mind of the Future

July 3rd, 2011

Discoveries in your community of neuroplasticity in the last few decades have highlighted the capacity for that minds to influence the structure individuals brains. Scientists from around the world have realized that our experiences will affect the way you are neurologically organized. While surgery, medications, and also the various forms of psychotherapy, to including hypnosis, have their own effects, our existence inside an environment of exponentially rapid technological growth is starting to become a significant factor in the future direction of the minds plus the good humanity. Our electronic “toys” not only affect our professional and social lives. Additionally, they effect on the way you remember, think, and imagine.

Within a few short decades we’ve experienced a revolution as the rate of technology has grown seemingly out of control. I vividly remember one evening in Germany where I became performing a tour as our battalion’s Staff Duty Officer. The entire year was 1980. Upon traversing to a squad room in headquarters company, I came upon a soldier, who had recently arrived through the States. He was sitting at his desk intensely exploring the screen of any small TV connected to a 4K Tandy computer. I used to be amazed. Then my most sophisticated tech device was a pricey TI four-function calculator. Yet today with our smart homes, iPods, Web-enabled, multimedia cell phones, and our 24/7 access to the Internet, the best way the world thinks, remember, and communicate has drastically changed.

For years most neurologists believed that all brain functions were localized in specific geographic areas which after a capability was lost through trauma or abuse, it had been gone forever. However, researchers including Michael Merzenich, PhD, at UCSF, Edward Taub, PhD, at UAB, and Alvaro Pascual-Leone, MD, on the Harvard Med school show that have can restructure mental performance. When neural substrates or subordinate networks of neurons become dormant, nearby networks extend in the underutilized areas considering the obsessive enthusiasm of Alabama kudzu. When networks are repeatedly used, chances are they become denser and even more dominant. And, when entire substrates become dysfunctional as a result of stroke or trauma, entire functions might be relocated completely to another area. So, exactly what does this indicate inside our technologically driven world?

On one hand, technology we can bypass and weaken certain elements of the mind. For example, my spouse has caught me more often than once doing simple arithmetic with my HP 12-C rather than trying to work such problems in my head while i was taught to do in grammar school. While I’m somewhat embarrassed by most of my new tech-driven habits, I am aware that several of the laziness is both promoting neural disuse and giving an opportunity for new networks to begin with an encroachment process. Although I do not willingly need to loose my power to calculate without electronics, Furthermore, i understand that I am allowing my brain to restructure and develop new capabilities. So, because i acknowledge that we must prevent my total dependence upon these devices, I need to also appreciate my new-found abilities.

Advances in technology, which literally means “process”, allow me new approaches to perform additional than simple calculations. A chance to retrieve visual, auditory, and semantic data, to sort it by relevance (i.e., Google PageRank), to research it through spreadsheets and database queries, and to then store it (i.e., recall) may be greatly enhanced. While most of these capabilities manage to mostly are now living in the meta-human realm of computer electronics, these enhanced information processing and memory/recall functions are experienced at the neural level. Therefore, they must incorporate some mind (or brain) expanding impact. More neurons are being used. More neural processes are participating. Thus, existing in a technological world is effective to our brains.

Think for a moment about just a few of the affected substrates. The imagination, anticipation, and assignment of meaning functions from the right orbitofrontal cortex are strengthened. Objective switching capabilities on the anterior cingulate cortex is fortified. Our explicit and implicit memory functions are enhanced as they are magnified by their partnership with computer storage. And, our a feeling of self as somewhat dependant upon the insula is expanded even as contact others worldwide.

However, when i implied inside calculator example, we must be vigilant as some advantages can be outweighed from the disadvantages. We might allow technology to become crutch which retards mental function to the issue that any of us become totally incapable of operating if your batteries die out or even a connection is lost. The mind-expanding importance of web 2 . 0, like Facebook and MySpace, shouldn’t allow our capacity to communicate face-to-face to wither. So we should likewise realize your schedule of addictive behavior due to dopamine and endorphin rushes as they are too often found with video gaming, virtual reality, as well as pornography.

Nevertheless, if we guard ourselves from your abuses and pitfalls of technology, they have the power to further human evolution and hopefully become a tool for a better world. However, are in the whole world of quantum possibilities. The answer to this dilemma might be found in attorney of exactly which area of the mental faculties are predominantly affected. If technology is chiefly interfacing with his more primitive brain structures, such as our emotional and reactive limbic system, then our addictive tendency can lead to our seeking a lot more intense thrills. Yet, if this enhances our cognitive functions as represented by our frontal lobe, then our increased chance to think, remember, and imagine moves us toward a larger state of human functioning.