The Future of Marketing is Increasingly Collaborative

A few years back, I witnessed one of my co-workers plotting to seek revenge on Time Warner Cable after a particularly annoying incident. Allegedly, she had taken a whole day off work to wait for the cable guy who never showed up, then later charged her for something she didn’t buy; when she called customer service, they put her on hold multiple times. The anger was building in her and she was determined to fix this on her lunch break, so she brought out the big guns: Twitter.

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Choosing the Right Team for Ultimate Work-Life Satisfaction

We in the business world love our acronyms…B2B, CPC, CTR, KPI, PPC, ROI…the list goes on and on. So here’s one more to add to your abbreviation word bank: TRIFC. Sure, it exceeds the traditional acronym count by 2 characters, but these 5 little letters can make a big difference in our five workdays. Here’s how I came to this declarative realization.

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Future of Customer Service: Predicting And Solving Problems Before They Happen

The future of customer service will be measured in the number of calls eliminated by predictive and prescriptive diagnostics. Gone are the days when your calls are routed to unqualified personnel whose only job is to document your problem and reroute you. Big data has forever changed the nature of customer service and leading the charge is Rod Bagg, Vice President of Analytics and Customer Support for Nimble Storage.

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3 Exponentially Better Alternatives to Banner Advertising

*First published on INC

Having started my career in 1994 building some of the very first commercial websites, I have more than 22 years of digital marketing game footage to draw upon. I even placed MasterCard’s very first banner ad on Yahoo in early 1995. At that time, we were delivering click through rates north of 10% on a consistent basis.

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Why 3D Renders Are Blowing Our Minds

Consider the manpower and dollars needed to photograph Mercedes latest vehicle in a bustling urban atmosphere? Or one of Ikeas many dining room sets that would be perfect for an array of decorative settings. Now consider all the uncontrollable factors such as weather and lighting that can become a photo shoot’s worst nightmare. Almost all of which can be avoided with the help of highly skilled 3D artists. More and more agencies are now seeking talented graphic artists whose skillsets contain 3D rendering. One can only expect this trend will continue to grow.

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How to Market Yourself as a Thought Leader

The founders of businesses are becoming just about as visible as the companies they create. In a culture that is obsessed with social media, reality TV, and crowd-funding, it makes sense that the public wants to connect with new brands on a personal level. And you don’t get much more personal than knowing the CEO!

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How to Use Your Customers as Your Creative Collaborators

Successful marketing all boils down to your ability to understand your customers and consistently communicate with them through creative advertising.

In the past, customer insights were the topic of focus groups and research, but that can be expensive and unnatural. Is an isolated room full of strangers the best place to pick your customer’s brain? Not really. Today, 61 percent of consumers report that social media impacts their buying decisions…so why not use that to your advantage?

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5 Ways to Keep Creative Teams Productive

When you see an article about “creatives,” maybe you think of the writers meetings on 30 Rock. Or maybe you think of the offices of some start-up in Silicon Valley where 20-somethings sit on sofas, drinking coffee and shooting Nerf basketballs while they write computer code. There certainly are plenty of workplaces like that and their management challenges are unique. However, having a real knack for managing creative talent has a much broader application across the economy than you might think.

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Finding the Haystack That Has the Needle

Think about the last time you made a major product purchase. For the sake of example, let’s pretend you were on the hunt for a ginormous 60’ HD television to wow your friends during the Super Bowl.

Unless you were the A/V Captain in high school, you probably didn’t start your journey by searching Amazon for “Samsung model UN60JU7100″. Instead, you may have begun with a little Google exploration, searching for “Best HD TV’s” or “Top televisions for sports”. Or perhaps you took to Twitter and asked your trusted network if they could offer recommendations on the topic.

At the end of the day, you probably didn’t know exactly what you were hunting for, or where you would end up. As a savvy digital consumer, you were beginning the research phase and most likely seeking consumer opinions to help inform your purchase decision.

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