Business & Marketing

Cloud: immediate takeoff of Marketing Department !

"Quarrels and complaints" brief but realistic relationship between marketing and sales departments in many companies. Why the struggles? There are two answers frequently heard, and both are false perceptions far too simplistic and competing egos and divergent objectives.

The "clash" of ego is at the heart of the First misconception. We've all heard our professional colleagues in marketing or sales boast of being the one who is always right. Although throughout my career, I encountered some sales managers and marketers who acted as if they were the most important person of the company; it was not really the norm. What is important to note is that employees are generally dedicated and do their utmost for the success of the company.

Marketing department and sales department: infighting

Which brings us to the second misconception: the different goals lead the marketing and sales to disagree with one another. Whatever the position may have an employee in a company, the primary goal of each is either to help increase revenue or improve profitability. The only difference, according to the substantive level, is to know the impact that these efforts will have on the target. 

The pressure of time, costs and profits

are everywhere, in all enterprises, particularly those with commercial and marketing services.

But in fact, a closer look, marketing services and business face the same challenge: to increase profitability and efficiency, doing more with less. Even if the methods are different, the goals remain the same. Starting from this premise, why is it that these two departments are vital for companies so often disagree?

The problem is alignment. Many sales and marketing teams are not aligned in their timing, their priorities, work processes and their messages. The local sales teams need to generate revenue in their field while marketing teams must demonstrate the effectiveness of their campaigns, demonstrate return on investment and checking the identity of the brand. Salespeople want to implement marketing programs that will, in their view, the most effective and with their own custom materials. But marketing is concerned with consistency and is reluctant to let the commercial marketing without direction or without validation. How those departments and realign them back on the same track? The answer lies in the Cloud.

The marketing department, behind a cloud on the commercial

More and more departments within companies use solutions "Cloud", it is usually IT services, business or human resources. But marketing has always been lagging behind with regard to the Cloud, which is unfortunate because the benefits are undeniable for the teams. Cloud Marketing consists of marketing services "cloud" technologies and features that make the best organized in-house marketing and external marketing programs more effective.

Thanks to Cloud, marketing departments can provide their business colleagues in the field of customizable templates, all in a closed loop that allows them to review and approve materials customized to the ground. They can automate design tasks such as setting up mailings or promotional material, while allowing trade to customize their materials according to their target audience. These items can be sent within the period defined by the most appropriate sales team, and be aligned in terms of marketing. Integrate it with other programs and measure the complete system of services marketing and sales alignment offers never seen before in the industry.

Cloud Marketing: undeniable advantages for marketing services

Indeed, companies are realizing more and more of the benefits of marketing Cloud

Availability 24/24 and 7 / 7: Access to materials and data they need, anytime and anywhere

Reduced costs: The SaaS often cost much less - with little cost to install, little or no work on site, and often include upgrades and customer service in their monthly costs

Ease of use: The ability to maintain control and consistency while allowing flexibility

Ease of measurement and analysis: The ability to measure everything and then to report objectively, qualitatively and quantitatively

Rapid Implementation: SaaS solutions are implemented faster than traditional enterprise software

Accelerating the Market: The Cloud is more flexible, highly available, it facilitates decision making and reduces time to market.

Measuring the impact of campaigns ...

Ease of measurement is one of the most compelling proposals for business and certainly the part where Cloud marketing has perhaps the most to offer. Marketing teams need to justify their costs and have to become more profitable to keep their budget. Make visible the results of different marketing campaigns are crucial in this context but can often be a challenge. ROI can be defined in many ways, but without precise measuring tools - is Cloud provides marketing - this is not possible.

Cloud marketing solutions help measure the impact of marketing campaigns on the total turnover. Through this panel, it becomes easy to analyze what actions are getting a good response rate or conversion, and which not. Based on this information, a campaign can be changed if necessary and marketing teams can have an overview and detailed view of what works best or evens the activities that require more investment. Through the cloud, the information panel can easily be coupled with sales performance, aligning marketing and sales people on the budget and the effects of strategies and investments.

Cloud marketing sign he end disputes and complaints between services marketing and sales? I would not assign the role of "answer to all ills," but it nevertheless gives us powerful alignment tools that allow us to bring us more than we've ever been.

@Lionel Goncalves

Key tips for a successful mobile marketing

Driven by the enormous success and the media storm of the Apple iPhone and the launch of Android by Google, interest in mobile marketing continues to grow. With these new devices, faster networks and geolocation, mobile marketing is becoming increasingly important. 






Mobile phones are a very specific marketing channel. They are personal, always on, and go everywhere the user. However, the dizzying array of screen sizes, different types of content reproduction, the conflicts of multiple standards and protocols most often limited to a marketing approach and technological equipment. 


In addition, the mobile phone is not a single channel. It includes many channels: mail, web sites, emails, applications and much more. Some of these channels - email and websites - are also used by non-mobile systems. 




How to control the mobile marketing into a communications channel of choice?




At a time when mobile telephony continues its growth, companies must move from limited actions of mobile marketing to a more strategic and more integrated. Despite some apparent difficulties, mobile marketing represents a significant opportunity to create interactive dialogues with customers. Well controlled and responsive, mobile marketing can easily become a channel of communication. 
Meet its customers 


As with any marketing channel, launched a strategy when an advertiser or a mobile campaign, the client must be central to its concerns. With mobile marketing, the customer must, more than ever, get a message as a service and not as an intrusion. 

How to control the mobile marketing into a communications channel of choice?

The mobile marketing channel is one of the most intrusive - at least frowned message a client can easily deny access to his laptop. It has never been more important to ensure the customer 
value of each marketing message. This will include much more than simply obtaining his consent to use that channel. Apart from the obvious examples of SMS reminders for appointments and deliveries, the key message is in understanding customers and their expectations at all times. 
Think beyond a simple message 


Companies need to use mobile marketing as a way to engage with their customers.Mobile phones provide an ideal platform for a more personal communication - as long as they remain relevant and consistent with respect to contacts and offers from other channels such as email or web. 


Elana Anderson, vice president of product marketing and strategy, Unica 
A person may welcome an alert on a flash sale taking place in a nearby shop, another might see the message as an intrusion and immediately switch to a negative attitude vis-à-vis the issuer. 
Get permission! 


Obtaining permission to communicate via mobile channels becomes easier as mobile marketing evolves as this authority (or opt in) becomes a part of marketing itself, encouraging clients to engage in campaigns using their phone. For example, the distribution companies are implementing loyalty systems via mobile phones instead of the inevitable loyalty card. Customers participating can download the latest deals while they are in the store. They receive on their mobile bar code associated with an offer for use on hand. As registration and download are attributable to the customer, authorization is given to receive marketing messages, without any intrusion. 
Companies such as Mini, Nike and Volkswagen taking a different approach to effectively engage in dialogue with customers by combining mobile campaigns to poster campaigns, helping to customize a traditional mass channel. Passersby are encouraged to take a picture of the signs bearing a code to validate the bonds, either online or in store. The customer initiates the contact with the company and agreeing to receive marketing offers. 
Be consistent 


With mobile marketing, often emerges a more complete picture of the client image can be used to ensure consistency and relevancy of campaigns across all channels. 


A successful mobile marketing campaign is much more effective when it is directly linked to other marketing activities such as emailing, or direct marketing offers in stores. Moreover, for these campaigns to be perceived as a service, they must be consistent.The customer agrees to receive offers on their mobile phones must be able to easily achieve - for example by scanning a bar code displayed in stores. This must in turn be recorded in his online account and the client should no longer receive emails making offers by getting them to provide their phone number. But this type of communication "concerted" remains the exception. 




However, for companies that manage to gain the confidence of the client, the opportunities are real. Besides loyalty programs and mobile marketing applications linked to mobility, GPS technology on smart phones already allows applications based on the geographical location of individuals. 


Business demographics is useful for those seeking a service or product and can generate sales quickly and efficiently. Ever more imaginative developments appear each day. Distributors specializing in fashion now send MMS videos from fashion shows to their prospects; cutters queues for shows can be stored on mobile phones and there are a myriad of applications for websites that have to interface with the mobile. 


The structure of an interactive marketing and mobile performance :


Companies must be able to: 


Be aware of all information provided by its clients and prospects - both explicit and implicit, 


Understanding the past and present information to determine the best action marketing 


Communicate attractive, timely and relevant. 


Each advertiser must also be able to achieve all this on all channels and this, in an integrated manner. Their marketing strategy is to become fully interactive: able to engage with each customer and prospect dialogue cross-channel behavior based on their past and present. 


Indeed, mobile initiatives often have an additional effect when combined with traditional campaigns, such as incentives to respond via SMS are used in print advertisements or promotions on the point of sale. 




Marketing campaigns - and mobile is no exception, are more effective if they adopt this interactive approach. 


Interactive marketing is not just online marketing. This is a global marketing - offline and online, mobile and traditional. 


But, Mobile marketing is marketing! 


@Lionel Goncalves