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Jun 24, 2019, 07:35 AM
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Rusty Langford
Customer support is customer support, right? While every company must acknowledge, respond and resolve customer inquiries or address complaints, it’s the uniqueness of their products that defines their customer experience. But not all products, and certainly not all consumers, have the same level of complexity. Such is the case with streaming services.
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Sep 4, 2018, 03:43 AM
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Matt Pollock
Jenny is a B2B sales associate. She's on the road a lot and she doesn't want to get caught without the proper marketing collateral for her meetings. To make sure she has what she needs at all times, she orders high volumes of materials from the company store and keeps them in her trunk.
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Aug 29, 2018, 15:44 PM
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None
Welcome to Featured, our publication in which we share the topics readers like you are most interested in each month.What resonated most with our audience in July? Our infographic on accurate attribution grabbed some attention—check it out to see why fractional attribution is the most effective method to optimize budget spend and improve MROI.
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Aug 22, 2018, 15:44 PM
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Zach Nelson
This insurance brand is a leading provider of property and casualty insurance that prides itself on providing superior customer service. The company had built an effective customer acquisition model through its large network of affinity partners, but rapid and revolutionary changes in the property and casualty (P&C) insurance category were making this model increasingly difficult to sustain.
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Aug 16, 2018, 15:44 PM
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None
Originally founded in the United Kingdom, this payment processing giant expanded its footprint into the United States. The brand’s unique offering benefits customers beyond basic payment processing and provides insights that can help customers grow their businesses. Their complex story had to be told in such a way that would garner optimal results for the U.S.-based operation.
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Aug 9, 2018, 15:44 PM
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None
A pioneer in the wealth management industry has as their business a wide range of services including retirement, education funding, investment, planning and insurance to individuals, families and businesses.
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Aug 1, 2018, 10:25 AM
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Scott Rhodes
As noted in a recent Gartner study, the CMO’s budget as a percent of total company revenues has dropped after years of persistent growth. The study concludes: “Marketing leaders must justify past budget commitments and demonstrate the returns they deliver to ensure the future fiscal health of marketing.”
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Jul 18, 2018, 06:03 AM
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Aaron Ludwig
We’ve discussed the factors you should consider when deciding to outsource your database, as well as some of the benefits you can reap from an outsourced marketing database. We’ve even covered what a good marketing database will cost (in house or outsourced).
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Jul 17, 2018, 04:14 AM
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Aaron Ludwig
You know the four functions of a good marketing database, but can you achieve all four on your own? If not, outsourcing might be the answer. The specific benefits you may gain from outsourcing your database marketing solution depend on your situation and goals. Generally, however, the benefits fall into 10 well-defined categories.
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Jul 16, 2018, 15:44 PM
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None
The dealership network of a major import automotive brand was losing after-sales revenue, an extremely important part of the dealership's overall profitability.
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Jul 16, 2018, 05:54 AM
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Matt Pollock
From travel and hospitality offers, to incentives on concert and sporting event tickets and that Starbucks card in your wallet, we’re a society that loves our perks. In the U.S. alone, consumers hold over 3.8 billion memberships in customer loyalty programs—and that number continues to grow.
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Jul 13, 2018, 12:05 PM
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Matt Pollock
Delivery options for ecommerce fulfillment are proliferating. The choice of same-day delivery or next-day or two-day shipping are table stakes. Now, consumers have the choice to go to a physical location to pick up their package themselves, saving time and money.
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Jun 28, 2018, 08:41 AM
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Jonathan Cayton
In this final installment of our four-part series on account-based marketing, we detail six technology fields essential to supporting an end-to-end ABM process. We also suggest tools for consideration for both entry-level and advanced strategies.
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Jun 14, 2018, 15:44 PM
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None
prEtrak software from Harte Hanks offers real-time reporting, which lets you know the precise location of your mail at all times. Our 30-year, hands-on relationship with the United States Postal Service helps to ensure that delays are avoided and your mail gets delivered on time. As a regular user of prEtrak data, even the USPS values the insight delivered by prEtrak reporting.
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Jun 14, 2018, 15:44 PM
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None
Enrollment continues to increase at this five-campus community college, and so has the need for student support services. With each new academic year comes predictable spikes in student information requests concerning enrollment, financial aid, and general information about student life. Student inquires of up to four times the typical need can easily stress student support staff to the limits.
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Jun 13, 2018, 13:37 PM
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Tej Bhattarai
Omnichannel marketing—the practice of sequencing communication across channels so that it’s connected, relevant and consistent with the customer’s buying stage—is no longer a competitive edge, but rather a business practice mandatory for survival.
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Jun 7, 2018, 15:44 PM
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None
In a world where customers demand exceptional, relevant experiences—online and offline—single, static data points and demographics simply won’t cut it. ou cannot converse contextually with someone by knowing that she’s a 38-year old female from Denver making $67,000 per year.
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Jun 7, 2018, 11:45 AM
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Jonathan Cayton
In this third installment of our four-part series about account-based marketing, we click through the “Four Ps” essential to the process: prepare, prioritize, plan and perform. Much of marketing is about pursuit. But we’d all be spinning in circles if we did not first invest the time to identify and get to know the prospective customers we are best suited to help—and consider the ideal approach to engage with them.
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Jun 5, 2018, 09:25 AM
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KN Kasibhatla
n the not-so-distant past, the standard methodology in marketing analytics was to input raw data variables into statistical programs to generate marketing insights. This approach was a core element of what is referred to as CRM 2.0.
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May 24, 2018, 10:12 AM
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Ioana Popescu
It's no stretch to say that there’s a lot of chatter on the internet creating a ton of digital noise. Today, on Twitter alone there are 350,000 new tweets sent per minute and currently 2.2 billion active monthly users on Facebook—that’s more people than the entire population of China.
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May 22, 2018, 15:17 PM
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Jonathan Cayton
In this second installment of our four-part series about account-based marketing, we’ll venture into selective accounting and developing personas by analyzing the events that shape the client’s needs. If you haven't yet, check out the first part in this series about the five essential ingredients to building an ABM strategy.
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May 14, 2018, 13:35 PM
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Marla Schilling
The Boutique continues to nurture website visitors by providing valuable content in the right moment. We strive to do this in the most human way possible, just as if we were in a real brick-and-mortar store, helping visitors face to face.
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May 11, 2018, 15:44 PM
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None
What an exciting and yet challenging time to be in marketing. The demands placed on us as marketers are constantly expanding and are being driven from all areas that impact our customers’ and potential customers’ lives. Perhaps none is more top of mind at the moment than trust. People share their information with us in the two-fold belief that we first will respect it, and second, that we will use it in a way that is genuinely relevant to them.
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Apr 23, 2018, 16:23 PM
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Jonathan Cayton
This story is the first in a four-part series that explores ways to leverage and effectively deploy account-based marketing. In this first part of the series, we examine the five essential ingredients to building an ABM strategy.
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Apr 17, 2018, 15:27 PM
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Thea Crelin
The digital revolution has disrupted industry after industry. Now it’s happening with insurance. There are three good reasons insurance has resisted the digital revolution up to this point—and they must be reckoned with for the industry to progress.
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Apr 12, 2018, 15:44 PM
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None
The constant mantra at Harte Hanks is: The right message, with the right offering, designed to reach the audience at the right time. One way we make this mission a reality is to create analytics-based personas. Another way is to nest personas within the strategic context we call the 5 Pillars of Best-in-Class Marketing.
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Apr 12, 2018, 15:44 PM
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None
Let’s start with Toys“R”Us . The childhood icon is closing its doors. What went wrong? How could they have avoided this fate? I’ve brought back a piece from October that explores how Toys“R”Us could have saved its stores. If your brand has a brick and mortar presence, click through to learn from their mistakes.
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Apr 5, 2018, 15:35 PM
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None
DeShelia Spann, Director of Strategy at Harte Hanks, explains why content is one of the few things that will remain constant in B2B marketing—and how to use it across the buyer's journey.
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Apr 5, 2018, 15:35 PM
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None
For B2B marketers to be successful, they need to take personalization beyond a name in an email to consistently serving up contextual messaging that aligns with behavioral insights and the buyer's journey.
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Apr 5, 2018, 15:35 PM
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None
Harte Hanks Director of Strategy DeShelia Spann explains how B2B marketers can use AI to move from broad-based messaging to a one-to-one approach.
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Apr 5, 2018, 13:53 PM
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DESHELIA SPANN
For several years now, the concept of personalization has been largely driven by quantitative and qualitative data. Leveraging demographic and firmographic insights to engage with existing and potential customers became the go-to-market strategy for many marketers.
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Apr 3, 2018, 15:24 PM
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Terry Arnold
Often, for your customers, the first point of interactive contact with your business is via your contact center. Whether it's through asking a question of your brand on social media or through your online chat feature, emailing, or calling to speak with a representative, the caliber of this particular interaction can make or break whether a customer decides to continue to interact with your brand (and what they share with their networks about their experience).
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Apr 2, 2018, 15:44 PM
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None
We are in the middle of a paradigm shift in the tools and capabilities driving customer relationship management (CRM) marketing. While the discussion of omnichannel and one-to-the-moment marketing has been around for some time, very few firms are executing this vision, despite a significant increase in enabling technologies.
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Mar 29, 2018, 15:35 PM
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None
Harte Hanks Strategist Beth Curtis-Clarke explains why B2B brands need to go beyond metrics and facts to humans and emotion in their marketing—and provides tips for getting started with storytelling.
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Mar 23, 2018, 13:50 PM
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Jennifer Miles-Losapio
With the recent data privacy scandal involving Facebook and a research company called Cambridge Analytica, the issue of personal data is seeing a whole new level of attention. In this light, adhering to privacy laws is all the more important.
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Mar 23, 2018, 13:45 PM
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Marla Schilling
Take a step back and think about how technology has played an integral part of making tasks easier and in turn, increasing our efficiency as humans.
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Mar 22, 2018, 15:35 PM
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None
Some brands are doing great account based marketing—and having fun with it. Alex Gill, SVP of B2B Strategy at Harte Hanks, explains how IBM is successfully using social listening to drive their ABM efforts.
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Mar 22, 2018, 15:35 PM
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None
Account based marketing (ABM) is a hot trend in B2B businesses, but not everyone is getting it right. Alex Gill, SVP of B2B Strategy at Harte Hanks, explains some of the mistakes brands are making with their ABM.
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Mar 22, 2018, 15:35 PM
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None
Alex Gill, SVP of B2B Strategy at Harte Hanks, defines account based marketing (ABM) and its goals.
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Mar 13, 2018, 15:44 PM
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None
A major technology company was interested in recognizing and capturing business change indicators related to their offerings. These include news items such as when, or if, a business is hiring, moving, expanding or receiving investments. Often, this type of information is stored in a wealth of unstructured data on public websites.
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Mar 9, 2018, 09:36 AM
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Terry Arnold
What happens when a brand overextends itself beyond its core business competencies? It fails. That's usually where outsourcing as a solution comes in. But some brands worry about how a strange new outsourcing partner could ever possibly know their business well enough to do take over vital functions like, say, inside sales.
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Mar 9, 2018, 09:24 AM
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Rusty Langford
It’s time to wrap up our series on strengthening the foundations of your customer support channels. Once you’ve mastered these basics, then and only then should you jump into the tempting waters of shiny and new technologies like artificial intelligence-driven chatbots and virtual reality.
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Feb 21, 2018, 12:40 PM
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Rusty Langford
Remember that old cliché, don’t put the cart before the horse? In other words, don’t get ahead of yourself. There’s a lot of talk about using new and impressive technologies—like artificial intelligence-driven chatbots and virtual reality—to improve support and the customer experience. But there are well-established communication channels that brands should (and in many cases, need to) focus on mastering first.
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Feb 15, 2018, 08:48 AM
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Rusty Langford
By using social media as a customer support channel, you give customers the option to solve their issues when and how they want. You can also use social to proactively mine insights about your trending support issues.
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Feb 1, 2018, 14:44 PM
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None
Marketing automation is more than the latest corporate buzzword. It’s a powerful strategy and tool that allows companies to nurture prospects with highly personalized, useful content. It helps convert prospects into customers, and customers into brand ambassadors.
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Dec 11, 2017, 14:44 PM
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None
A well-known semiconductor manufacturer was using a print-and-distribute model, printing a large number of materials to be shipped to fulfillment operations in Europe, Southeast Asia and North America.
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Nov 27, 2017, 14:46 PM
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Steve Acuna
Just in case you didn’t know, there’s still only 24 hours in a day. And the constant demands on our time and work/life balance are nothing new. Only now, there are more options, more channels, and more content vying for our attention during those 24 hours.
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Nov 22, 2017, 14:44 PM
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None
In the early 2000’s, this global technology leader relied on marketing staff spread across multiple centers in Europe for its campaign execution. Services were delivered at a non-standardized, regional level with little to no reporting or management structure in place.
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Oct 20, 2017, 15:44 PM
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None
By implementing the Customer Engagement Hub, this technology company sought to connect data and systems to deliver successful onboarding at scale.
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Oct 18, 2017, 11:38 AM
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Nicole Bump
Stories are the thread that holds the fabric of society together. Storytelling lets people see things they haven’t actually seen. Our primitive ancestors told tales of their discoveries, fears and heroism. Storytelling was our early survival masterstroke.
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Oct 16, 2017, 15:44 PM
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None
Take an increasingly competitive and pressurized global market for technology products. Add constantly evolving buyer behavior, and then factor in social media’s growing influence on buying decisions. These trends represent remarkable opportunities provided you have the right tools and insights.
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Sep 19, 2017, 15:44 PM
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None
A global, top-ten semiconductor manufacturer sells parts for computers, mobile phones, and other devices. Historically, the company relied on distributors to sell small- and medium-sized customers and fielded direct sales teams for large accounts. All sales orders were fulfilled by a global network of independent distributors.
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Sep 18, 2017, 15:44 PM
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None
A long-standing leader in the office equipment and business services industry historically used a decentralized approach to marketing. Each global region had its own marketing organization and was independently accountable for most of the company’s market planning and execution. This approach was highly responsive to local markets and customer needs.
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Sep 14, 2017, 13:59 PM
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Brett Eckrich
We’ve previously talked about how artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to drive personalization in a B2B marketing situation. So, how do we put that AI into action and create a two-sided, thoughtful conversation that adds value for the buyer? We need a strategy for the implementation of these conversations and the proper technology to enable successful interactions.
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Aug 23, 2017, 15:44 PM
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None
Panasonic Business was working with five different agencies in five different countries across Europe to generate leads for its 11 product lines. Each agency had different marketing systems, different levels of selling skills, and of course, different languages. Results in terms of quality and quantity of leads was uneven. Panasonic found it overly complicated to manage all five agency relationships.
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Aug 17, 2017, 15:44 PM
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None
A U.S.-based technology company was facing increased pressure from competitors stealing market share from their flagship product. Relying primarily on a marketing automation tool to deliver leads to reps, campaign performance was steadily declining.
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Jul 28, 2017, 15:08 PM
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Jennifer Miles-Losapio
Advances in marketing technology have made it possible for companies to collect or purchase significant amounts of prospect and customer data. What to do with this data – how to transform it, disseminate it, and render it usable – is the topic du jour for marketers, and this is where artificial intelligence, or AI, enters the conversation.
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Jul 12, 2017, 11:45 AM
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Steve Acuna
Take everything you’ve learned about building personas upon traditional demographics, ball it up, and throw it out the metaphorical window. Done? Good. The single BEST way to build your personas is to understand the situation and context for why your customers will purchase your product or services.
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May 25, 2017, 15:49 PM
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Anne Balistreri
Remember when marketing was done through human interactions? It seems like it was ages ago. Although the emergence of digital has changed our methods, there is one fundamental rule that has not changed: people buy from people they like and trust.
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May 3, 2017, 15:04 PM
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Paula Crerar
Content marketing is already a well-established tactic for B2B companies. According to Content Marketing Institute, 88% of B2B marketers are using content marketing. And most marketers already understand how content fits into a demand generation strategy: you create great content, promote that content across channels, encourage people to fill out a form in order to download high-value content, and then deliver those leads to your sales team for follow-up.
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Mar 20, 2017, 13:35 PM
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Katie Sweet
Imagine that you’re a marketer currently researching a new martech solution for your team. At the beginning of your search when you land on one company’s website, what are you looking for? If you’re like me, you want to understand what the company does and whether the solution is relevant to your current needs — as fast as possible. You don’t want to wade through pages and pages of website copy and other content to make this assessment.
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Mar 10, 2017, 10:14 AM
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Alex Gill
Customer experience marketing is a proven antidote to the complex buyer journeys that characterize the B2B sector today. The goal is to serve highly relevant content to buyers in the right place at the right time, enhancing lead nurture and conversion to deliver better revenue growth.
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Jan 27, 2017, 11:39 AM
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Frank Grillo
Case Study from Dr. Karl Hellman.
We live in a cluttered marcom world: thousands of messages bombard us every day. Here’s how a professional services firm cut through and grew their business.
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Sep 22, 2016, 15:44 PM
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None
A leading international technology corporation selected Harte Hanks to develop and implement a visionary social selling model to help seize opportunities presented by social media’s growing influence on buyers. By leveraging the right tools and insights they were able to better interact with buyers across online channels in order to drive lead-generation.
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Sep 21, 2016, 15:44 PM
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None
The social landscape is booming. For B2B businesses, this means vast and valuable opportunities. But, how do you cut through the social noise and tune into the conversations that will have the most impact on your brand?
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Jun 8, 2016, 15:44 PM
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None
Developments in vertual reality are gathering pace. Adoption rates are up and the depth, breadth and quality of content is steadily increasing. Forbes reported that from January to March 2016, $1.1 billion dollars was invested in VR.
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May 4, 2016, 13:00 PM
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Adi Clark
I’ve spent much of my career working in data-driven marketing roles and delivering insights for B2C brands, but over the last decade the balance has shifted and I now work almost exclusively with B2B businesses. While some of the differences between the two worlds are to be expected, such as the availability of different data types and the more complex buying cycle in B2B, in fact there are a great deal of similarities in the techniques and types of analysis that can be carried out for B2C and B2B. So why aren’t B2B brands making as much use of analytics as their B2C counterparts?
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Apr 26, 2016, 11:44 AM
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David Chandler
On April 12 virtual reality trailblazers from across the globe descended on Bristol for VR World Congress. As you’d expect, many attendees were gaming professionals. But some speakers and exhibitors explored VR in relation to wider areas such as data visualisation, engineering, medicine and education.
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Mar 3, 2016, 10:58 AM
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Alex Gill
In our recent session at B2B Marketing’s InTech event in London, we considered how demand generation can be improved through a convergence of technology and people.
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Jan 25, 2016, 14:44 PM
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Alex Gill
The B2B demand-marketing ecosystem continues to evolve at a rapid pace. It’s driven by emerging technologies, tactics and buyer behaviors, alongside other well-established factors that continue to shape the discipline.
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Nov 24, 2015, 14:44 PM
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None
How do you enable customers to seamlessly shift from traditional to new entertainment services? How do you control the flood of consumer purchases and inquiries on a new online platform? In 2014, a major entertainment provider faced these challenges as they launched a new online subscription service.
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Nov 10, 2015, 11:57 AM
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Alan John Kittle
Smart B2B brands have been learning from their B2C cousins about wrapping messages up in a more appealing way for years. Some B2B players have a clear vision of the role video needs to play and how to make the viewer experience both enjoyable and meaningful. Plaudits where they’re due!
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Apr 24, 2015, 08:39 AM
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None
Harte Hanks (NYSE: HHS), a leader in developing customer relationships, experiences and defining interaction led marketing, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its B2B research businesses, Aberdeen Group and Harte Hanks Market Intelligence, to subsidiaries of Halyard Capital.
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