I write about the three topics that I am most passionate about; Sales, Marketing and Social Media. These topics are covered from my experiences in outside sales and marketing. My objective is to use my expertise to help business and the individual.
Last week, I covered the Search Marketing Expo in New York City. Search Marketing Expo has is a great event for SEO, SEM, and Digital Marketing professionals. SMX provides attendees with an opportunity to learn actionable techniques in conference sessions and training workshops. Google and Microsoft provided seminars on various SEM topics.
Organic traffic has reached its peak and will decline.
To keep traffic coming to their sites, Marketers will need to find ways to nudge consumers as Zero click queries continue to grow.
Organizations need to shift their investments in product, content, and brand. Decisions on how to redeploy these resources need to be a company-wide effort.
At the end of the keynote, I met Rand and received a signed copy of his new book entitled Lost and Found.
In Google’s Keynote, I learned how businesses can get an edge during the holidays. I also learned of Google’s plan to use Google Images and YouTube for eCommerce. Google is also allowing businesses to use location-based Ads in Google Maps.
The key insights of the presentation were:
1. According to Google most shopping visits start online.
2.When diners search for a great place to eat the searches are probably happening on a smartphone.
3. When people are online in cars, more than half of them are searching for information on a mobile device making localization and targeting important.
4. . 2/3′s of shoppers say that online video has given them insight and inspiration to make purchases.
5. Shoppers use at least 3 channels or more when shopping.
6. Brands need to provide an omnichannel channel experience all year, especially during the holidays.
7. Sales are happening online and offline. As a result of this shift, Brands need to serve customers on the channels of their choice.
I write about the three topics that I am most passionate about; Sales, Marketing and Social Media. These topics are covered from my experiences in outside sales and marketing. My objective is to use my expertise to help business and the individual.
Propelify is an event where people from across the Northeast can turn ideas into action.
Officials from the New Jersey State government attended. They offered entrepreneurs resources to start and/or scale their business in New Jersey.
New Jersey Tech Council CEO Aaron Price and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy delivered the opening keynote. In their keynote, Aaron and Governor Murphy discussed Propelify’s mission and why businesses should consider New Jersey.
There were additional talks on topics from Cannabis, Customer Experience, Marketing, Sales, Recruiting and Entrepreneurship.
Cannabis: From New Brand To IPO In A Prohibition Market panel.
Rebecca Price moderates a panel on The Science Behind Smart Recruiting and Seeing Thru the Resume.
Entrepreneurs networked with investors. There was also a Startup competition.
Exhibitors represented diverse entities ranging from Government, Advertising, Financial Services, CPG, HRTech, Universities, Incubators, Accelerators, IT, Healthcare and E-commerce brands.
I covered Advertising Week in New York. Advertising Week is where the best minds of Marketing and Advertising meet to share and learn best practices.
Matt Scheckner Global CEO of Advertising Week shares his thoughts at the opening breakfast.
There were great panels and workshops.
My key takeaways from Advertising Week 2019 were:
1. Brands need to better understand emotional intelligence and be able to apply it to their content creation. Other emotions besides happiness drive purchases. Spencer Gerrol the CEO of Spark Neuro shares insights from a biometrics study on how emotion in content affects brand value.
Spencer also did a live demonstration showing how the brain responds to Ads in real-time.
2. According to Gary Vaynerchuk, Marketing is becoming more like Sales in terms of being results-driven. Brands will eventually need to create up to 500 pieces of content per day to engage the ever-increasing buyer personas and customers’ tastes. Gary also shared the idea that LinkedIn is the best platform for organic reach.
3. Brands need to organize their organizations around the customer journey and experience. Philips SVP of Digital Marketing and E-commerce Blake Cahill shared how the company is organizing and transforming around the Customer Journey. He provided actionable steps companies can take to better serve customers.
4. The funnel of today will look like a flywheel by 2030.
Nikki Issac of Mircosoft shares Microsoft’s Research on Marketing and the Customer Journey. She also moderates a panel with Esteban Ribero of Performics.
Brands need to use data and AI to better understand their customers. According to research conducted by Microsoft, only 20% of today’s marketers have a high customer experience quotient (CXQ). A high(CXQ) means that brands fully understand user intent to create their customer journey; improving their performance to increase customer engagement.
Why should Brands be Customer-Centric? Brands that were Customer-Centric saw a 45% increase in ROI/ROAS.
We will see the rise of the Chief Journey Officer or CJO.
Where are you on the Journey?
5. Brands need to understand the role of Social Media in Customer Journey and how it impacts customer buying habits and decisions.
Businesses need to improve how they use Social Listening
and Analytics tools to understand customer intent.
A framework needs to define and address KPIs at each touch-point in the customer journey.
Why is this important?
More Marketers believe Social Listening is important.
6. Brands need to apply design thinking to cultivating empathy for end-users, interpreting and framing problems they experience, creative solution generation, and continuous prototyping and testing. The goal is to provide creative solutions for the end-user.
7. Brands need to listen and understand the customers of tomorrow. It is not just about Gen Z but Gen Alpha. Gen Alpha will be more active on social issues and more open to challenging the status quo than Gen Z.
8. According to Samsung Ads, with the rise of the Connected TV, Brands will be able to track and measure the effectiveness of their TV ads, similar to online advertising. Targeted TV is of critical use for advertisers because TV is viewed on Mobile, Desktop, Native Smart TV and Display. Advertisers expect to be able to track customers across platforms while producing ROI/ROAS reports just like online advertising.
9. Televised sports will increase its presence in Television programming. Soon, Sports Betting will be Televised according to CEO Chris Ripley of Sinclair Broadcast Group. Eventually, gamblers will be able to view Sporting events and place bets in real-time over their Smart TV and/or connected devices. This will provide gamblers with great customer experience.
10. Any business can use technology and creativity to: build community, start and scale an eCommerce business, create content and campaigns that convert.
Facebook’s Mark D’Arcy, CCO and VP of Global Business Marketing showed how to do this using Facebook.
Mark also spoke on Facebook’s social initiative Boost with Facebook. Boost with Facebook helps break down socioeconomic barriers by offering people the chance to up-skill on everything from using Facebook to finding a job. Boost with Facebook is a combination of online learning and live workshops.
Advertising Week 2019 was a great event. I want to thank everyone that made the event possible. On a personal note, I want to thank Matt Scheckner the Global CEO of Advertising Week and the Sunshine Sachs Communications team for having me as their guest.
I covered the Digital Agency Expo in New York. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this event, Digital Agency Expo is a conference focused on how to build, grow and scale a Digital Agency in 2019.
Ryan Deiss, the co-founder, and CEO of Digital Marketer opened up Digital Agency Expo.
In his opening talk on how to recession-proof a Digital Agency, Ryan identified three Key skills that agency owners and marketers need to master for success.
1. Master the skill of Copywriting
2. Master Email Marketing
3. Be able to create Partnerships
Ryan challenged the concept of a Full-Service Agency. He also argued against the notion that a bigger Agency is more profitable and can consistently produce high-quality results.
Ryan also recommended books to read along with a model for a successful agency.
It was an insightful talk.
Another great talk was delivered by Keap CEO Clate Mask. He outlined the five Stages of Agency growth. Clay also shared how he struggled to get his business off the ground. He kept going despite being told to get a job. His advice for when things get tough:
Evan Radisic of Proposify shares the State of Proposal research. Proposify examined 1.6 million proposals creating a blueprint of a winning proposal.
One of my favorite talks was the Keynote by Gary Vaynerchuck. Gary shared how to create, grow and scale a digital agency. He shared how he built multiple businesses on a shoestring budget despite his humble beginnings. Gary also took questions from the audience. I have included a portion of the talk here.
I attended EdSurge ImmersionNYC this past Friday. The event was designed for EdTech startups that are looking for Advice in the areas of Marketing, K-12 Sales, Scaling Up and Exiting. Attendees had the opportunity to hear from leaders at Various Education organizations ranging from CEOs, Founders, School Superintendents, and Venture Capitalists.
I enjoyed the presentation provided by Brett van Zuiden of Clever. In his presentation, he reminds us to think of users when designing products versus the way we would use a product.
He reinforced the idea that great product design cannot happen without truly understanding our customers.
Attendees had the opportunity to take three Clinics led by experts in Sales, Marketing, Scaling up and Exiting. I enjoyed the clinics because they were customized and led by experts.
The clinics that were most relevant to me, were two clinics on Marketing and one on Selling to K-12 school districts. I was able to meet and connect with many great entrepreneurs in the clinics. We received advice that was customized and actionable.
There were also many opportunities to network throughout the event.
EdSurge also announced the upcoming launch of its new service called EdSurgeIntelligence.
The services will apply a fresh approach to market intelligence and learning for investors and executives. EdSurgeIntelligence will allow users to analyze trends from early childhood through higher ed, the workforce and more.
I want to thank the Edsurge Team for having me at Edsurge ImmersionNYC.
I covered the Digital Marketing World Forum in New York this past week.
There were great discussions on Digital and Social Marketing. The topics ranged from the customer journey, customer experience, customer retention, personalization, using data, and privacy legislation.
My key insights were:
1. To improve customer retention, brands need to understand their customers to personalize their experiences across all touchpoints. Marketers from different verticals shared how they were able to improve customer loyalty and retention by personalizing and creating customer experiences across all touchpoints.
2. Many times, customer data tells a story that contradicts preconceived hunches and opinions. Marketers from T-Moblie and Decoded found this out when they marketed Cell Phone plans to the 55+ community.
3. Marketers have the tools to better understand their customers and to track the results of their efforts faster than ever before. These tools empower marketers to improve the customer journey and experience. With this power comes the obligation to better serve their customers and to quickly pivot when their tactics and strategies are not effective. Marketers with different products and services shared their stories and strategies.
4. Companies that are going to use Chatbots to serve customers need to train Chatbots to handle complex requests from customers. Chatbots should not be used to answer questions like the hours of a store or simple information that can be obtained from a website.
5. Privacy Legislation similar to GDPR is coming to the United States. Laws in California and Nevada are being enacted in 2020. OneTrust shared how Marketers can prepare and comply with the Californa Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
I covered Voice Summit last week at NJIT in Newark, New Jersey. Voice Summit is the largest voice tech conference that brings the conversational design ecosystem together in one place.
Last year was the first Voice Summit. It was amazing to see how the industry has advanced in the past year. This year, the conference grew to over 5,000 attendees!
Voice Summit was a great place to network. Many Voice Startups demoed their offerings as well.
Founder Pete Erikson shares the story of Voice in the opening press conference. Pete shared the podium with Voice industry leaders and Newark Civic Leadership.
The conversation in Voice has shifted from should brands have a Voice Strategy to how to effectively incorporate voice technology across the organization. Attendees had opportunities to attend hands-on voice workshops on topics ranging from creating brand guidelines to building a voice strategy from the ground up. I took the Voice strategy workshop conducted by Brett Kinsella of VoiceBot.Ai. We received a workbook that had questions that served as building blocks to build our voice strategy.
I had was able to get a look at the Expo Floor where I was able to meet exhibitors and explore the Amazon Smart Home. It was amazing to see how voice technology has transformed the home experience. In this video, I was able to ask Alexa to play Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and to play music, etc.
Marketers have many opportunities with Voice and Audio Content according to Voices.com research. Content takes the form of short and long-form ranging from Flash Briefings up to Audiobooks.
However, when it comes to smart speakers only, 18% of users discover skills from brand advertising according to Vixen Labs.
Brands need to prepare to change their Marketing and Advertising for Voice. A panel shared their thoughts on how to improve how to achieve this aim.
Edison Research and NPR conducted market research on the topic of smart speaker customer behavior. The number of smart speakers in U.S. homes grew 78% from December of 2017 to December. The research packed with data you can see here.
Brett Kinsella led a panel where Marketers shared how they have developed and implemented their strategy for Voice.
Steve Keller of Pandora shared his thoughts on the topic of Sonic Branding and Sound Business.
On a side note, NJIT was nice enough to provide me with a tour of the start-up incubator and co-working space opening this September. I was able to see areas being built from the ground up just as startups are.
I also was able to see the Alexa Cup which is Amazon’s initiative to pair Marketers and developers to work on projects such as Female Empowerment and Mental Health.
What touched me on a human level was the closing keynote entitled “A journey through a deaf developer’s eyes.” In this keynote, Thomas Chappell of Prudential shared his story. Thomas is unable to speak.
After his talk, I was able to meet him. People communicate with him using Voice to speech technology and American Sign language. I was able to use the technology on a smartphone to have a full conversation with him.
Voice Summit was an amazing conference. I want to thank Pete Erikson, the Modev Team, NJIT, the City of Newark, and the State of New Jersey for having me as their guest.
I covered the Digital Summit Series in New York City this past Wednesday and Thursday. The Digital Summit Series provides attendees with comprehensive workshops on Digital Marketing that are conducted by speakers from leading brands along with industry through leaders. Topics ranged from Content, Email,Search, Mobile, UX Design, Social and Strategy. Attendees were also able to network with other attendees. I learned so much over these two days. Here are some of the highlights.
Stacy Minero delivered the keynote on Day One of Digital Summit entitled the Craft of Content in which she show how Brands can make an impact using Content.
1.Key takeaways were that Consumers want Brands to talk with them and not at them.
2. Consumers want Brands to take a stance on Social Issues.
3. Consumers expect Brands to solve social problems.
4. 89% of Content is not noticed at all
5. 40% of Consumers are more likely to respond to brands who respond to them
6. The old world started with Storyboards and TV now The new world starts with the customer and canvas.
7. Examples of Brands Creating Great Content include Heinz with the #MayoChup campaign and HBO with with its promotion of the digital streaming of Sopranos.
8. Before posting content Brands need to ask if the content they create is memorable or meaningful.
The keynote gave me a lot to think about.
Seth Godin gave the keynote entitled This is Marketing on Day two. In the keynote Seth covered many great points on Marketing from his book This is Marketing.
Marketers make change Happen.
Pick Yourself.
Tell a story that resonates with the people you seek to serve.
Pick the Smallest Most Viable Audience or Most Viable Market
Marketing is not advertising anymore
Television is about Mass Marketing and the Internet is a micro-medium
Seth also had an interactive Q & A session. He had a Poke the Box style Mic with the caption Catch the box; which he randomly tossed in the audience prompting them to to ask questions.
I really enjoyed the talk.
Other sessions that I enjoyed were on the topics of improving: Email Marketing, Marketing Workflow, B2B Marketing and Video Marketing. Pictures of these slides will be posted to Instagram.
If you want to attend in your city, click here for more information.
Did you attend Digital Summit? What are your thoughts?
I covered TechDay in New York City at the Jacob Javits Center this past Thursday.
Organizers of the event offered the opportunity to: network with Venture Capitalists, Accelerators, listen to Tech Talks, Fireside chats and pitch your start up. Attendees were able to look for a job or business opportunity with exhibitors and start ups. Entrepreneurs even had the opportunity to audition for SharkTank.
There are amazing exhibits at the New York International Auto Show that showcased innovations in the auto industry. These innovations included an increased number of: Hybrid, Electric and Voice enabled vehicles. Mercedes-Benz showcased its Voice enabled vehicles in its Press Conference.
Porsche celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the 911 with the unveil of the 911 Speedster. This was really enjoyable to see.
Ford celebrated National Mustang Day celebrating 50 years of the Mustang.
The show is truly amazing but don’t take my word for it. See for yourself!
The New York International Auto Show is open to the public from Friday, April 19th to Sunday, April 28th, 2019. Tickets cost $17 for Adults, $7 for Children, pricing for groups and tours can be found on the website. For more information go to http://www.autoshowny.com/tickets.
What do you want to see at the show? If you have attended the show, what was your favorite exhibit?
The council’s mission is to: collectively representing tech, life science and tech-related companies and organizations as well as the professional firms that support them, the Tech Council has the unique ability to:
Offer opportunities to learn, network and grow
Recognize and promote member companies and their leadership
Nurture the tech and STEM talent pipeline critical to growth
Provide access to financing sources and additional resources
Advocate and support public policy which strengthens our ecosystem
Founded in 1996, the Council is a private, nonprofit membership organization, which supports the tech, innovation, and entrepreneurial ecosystems across the state and region. It is among the largest and most respected trade organizations of its kind nationwide.
The focus of the event was to help New Jersey start ups grow and raise funds. Start ups pitched their businesses and asked for funding.
There were two rounds of pitches along with networking opportunities.
The startups that pitched represented industries such as but not limited to: EdTech, E-Learning, Healthcare, Sports Betting and esports .
Round 1 included
Scriptertainment Wapanda LifeCuff Technologies Inc. QwikScript Boxcar Upside Health teliapp SiLAS eCare21, Inc VibeGather, LLC TrueConnect Systems, Inc Krow Network WearWorks MARCo Technologies LLC Lambent Data Life Skill Software OculoMotor Technologies Sporttrade TLCengine SRL Group Ribbit.io Nutrivide MedifVu, LLC Totally Pregnant
Round 2 Included
PeerChecked, Inc. Datafy Medality Medical Smirta Innovations Inc. Vikar Technologies Malbek Verstill Commerce Blitz, LLC. PlayDate XPEED Turbine Technology Pochette, LLC Genomic Prediction Pullup Technologies ROAR for Good Indie Art World Elemeno Health Bloqcube Caregiver Smart Solutions MYXR Events Corp. Paratrees Speak2 Software Gamefuly Entractiv Quintrix
You could feel the energy and excitement in the air as I was able to speak with 48 innovate startups.
I really enjoyed the keynote speech by the Fanduel EVP & Head of Strategy David Van Egmond.
In the speech, he discussed how he helped FanDuel grow and succeed. He also discussed the industry of online sports betting and esports; both are growth industries. These industries are legal in New Jersey and serve as a great source of revenue for the state.
It was a great event. I want to thank the New Jersey Tech Council for allowing me to cover the conference.
I write about the three topics that I am most passionate about; Sales, Marketing and Social Media. These topics are covered from my experiences in outside sales and marketing. My objective is to use my expertise to help business and the individual.
I covered the Product Marketing Community event in New York. Product Marketing Community was founded by Product Marketers for Product Marketers.
Attendees of Product Marketing Community events take interactive workshops led by product marketing leaders and network with their peers.
The event covered how to: build and execute: go-to-market strategy, buyer insights, messaging, content, and sales enablement.
Product Marketing Community founder Rowan Noronha kicked off the event.
Currently VP of Product Marketing for Zix, Rowan has led product marketing for North America (Office of the CFO) at SAP and Cognizant. He also serves as an Advisor to SAAS startups.
Here are takeaways on go-to-market strategy, developing buyer insights, and sales enablement.
Marketers need to develop and deploy a buyer-centric go-to-market strategy.
It is time for marketers to ask better questions about buyers.
Businesses should identify their ideal audience for their offering. Data from this analysis can be used to target better prospects and improve go-to-market results.
Only certain target customers will buy due to internal and external factors.
To grow revenue, businesses need to develop and use better competitive insights. Developing these insights entails examining everything about the competition to identify: strengths, weaknesses, competitor priorities, growing, and under-served markets.
Product Marketing involves more than just supporting the Marketing and Product Management teams. Product Marketers serve Marketing, Sales and Product teams. Each team has different needs and responsibilities. However, they all play a role in growing the business and serving customers.
Product Marketers serve as market experts and translators for teams from across the organization.
What is Product Marketing?
Product Marketing is the discipline of bringing a product to market and nurturing its success. Businesses need to create and market products people want to buy. To do that, they need to use the Pragmatic Framework.
Product Marketers are taking on some Product Manager responsibilities.
Product Marketing needs a separate brief.
Johnathan Hinz of Seismeic shares his insights on sales enablement and its role in marketing.
The lack of Sales and Marketing alignment is due in part to the inadequate amount of customer value mapping relating to the number of buyers types.
Product Marketing Community New York was a great event.
I covered the Product Marketing Community event in New York. Product Marketing Community was founded by Product Marketers for Product Marketers.
Attendees of Product Marketing Community events take interactive workshops led by product marketing leaders and network with their peers.
The event covered how to: build and execute: go-to-market strategy, buyer insights, messaging and content and sales enablement.
Product Marketing Community founder Rowan Noronha kicked off the event.
Currently VP of Product Marketing for Zix, Rowan has led product marketing for North America (Office of the CFO) at SAP and Cognizant. He also serves as an Advisor to SAAS startups.
Here are takeaways on go-to-market strategy, developing buyer insights, and sales enablement.
Marketers need to develop and deploy a buyer-centric go-to-market strategy.
It is time for marketers to ask better questions about buyers.
Businesses should identify their ideal audience for their offering. Data from this analysis can be used to target better prospects and improve go-to-market results.
Only certain target customers will buy due to internal and external factors.
To grow revenue, businesses need to develop and use better competitive insights. Developing these insights entails examining everything about the competition to identify: strengths, weaknesses, competitor priorities, growing, and under-served markets.
Product Marketing involves more than just supporting the Marketing and Product Management teams. Product Marketers serve Marketing, Sales and Product teams. Each team has different needs and responsibilities. However, they all play a role in growing the business and serving customers.
Product Marketers serve as market experts and translators for teams from across the organization.
What is Product Marketing?
Product Marketing is the discipline of bringing a product to market and nurturing its success. Businesses need to create and market products people want to buy. To do that, they need to use the Pragamtic Framework.
Product Marketers are taking on some Product Manager responsibilities.
Product Marketing needs a separate brief.
Johnathan Hinz of Seismeic shares his insights on sales enablement and its role in marketing.
The lack of Sales and Marketing alignment is due in part to the inadequate amount of customer value mapping relating to the number of buyers types.
Product Marketing Community New York was a great event.
