As marketers, we all have our favorite tools to ease our daily workload. But some tools can be a huge investment, especially when you’re an independent contractor, entrepreneur or small company that doesn’t have the money to allocate for expensive methods. I’m always looking for the most efficient and affordable…
We live in an exciting time of unprecedented technological and knowledge advancement. Only 20 years ago (this was pre-Google), data was at the ultimate premium. Accurate, reliable information was highly coveted and had the potential to make huge impacts on business decision making and strategy at all levels and across…
A director of market intelligence at a Fortune 50 company called me last week. He wanted my advice about how to recharge the competitive intelligence process in his company. I have been getting more calls like that in the last six months than in the last decade. It seems that…
Demographic and behavioral analytics traditionally have served as the foundation for delivering personalized, simplified customer experiences that satisfy consumers’ unique needs across multiple channels. These data sources have unlocked a trove of actionable insights into consumer interests, location and brand affinity, allowing marketers—and retailers, in particular—to better personalize the shopping…
A friend recently commented on the hubbub around the Apple Watch (and the wearables category, in general), noting that most of the data provided by these devices is actually useless. Sure, we’re all counting steps and strides and hours slept, but we’re not really doing anything about it. And as…
Analytics might be a term on the tip of every marketer’s tongue these days, but results from the February 2015 CMO Survey make it clear that using marketing analytics remains a challenge for companies and, in fact, analytics usage appears to be infrequent. The CMO Survey, conducted by Duke University…
We live in a cross-platform world. In an age of streaming video and social media, digital content is accessible to consumers in many ways. According to Google Analytics, more than a third of all U.S. consumers own multiple digital devices (desktop/laptop computer, tablet and smartphone) and they seamlessly move from…
Despite the fact that marketers continue to struggle to measure and communicate their social successes, they’re investing more time and resources into social media marketing efforts. According to the August 2014 findings from The CMO Survey, a nationwide poll of top U.S. marketers conducted twice annually by Duke University in…