This week in martech
News from Terminus, Macy's, Drift, Forrester and IBM.
Terminus integrates with Salesforce Pardot
Terminus, the ABM platform, has integrated with Salesforce Pardot, the B2B marketing automation solution. Pardot users can now access Terminus account data and information in the Pardot platform, allowing for a more streamlined marketing automation operation. The integration will also allow for more in-depth reporting, heightened analytics, shared data and the ability to implement lead-to-account campaigns.
This announcement follows the ABM challenge to supplement corporate IP data with data from other sources, as remote working continues. See our story last month.
Additional integration features:
• Bi-directional data synchronization that allows for more targeted advertising campaigns or active drip marketing campaigns;
• Sales and customer information to assist in prioritizing consumer outreach to targeted and engaged accounts with notifications about expiring or at-risk customers; and
• Matching leads to accounts while building customized marketing campaigns.
Why we care. Increased efficiency in the ABM space means more partnerships and more targeting and categorization of accounts. With leads at a premium, ABM strategies have never seemed more important.
Macy’s expands its ambassador program to influencers
Macy’s has expanded its online Style Crew ambassador program from employees to influencers and anyone passionate about fashion and beauty. The program will allow style influencers to transition to become Macy’s brand ambassadors by utilizing digital shoppable store fronts on Macys.com and throughout social media.
“Expanding our marquee e-commerce program will enable passionate content creators to grow their personal brands while providing Macy’s shoppers with a highly engaging online experience,” said Macy’s Chief Stores Officer Marc Mastronardi.
Style Crew will allow influencers and brand ambassadors to use their own social media channels to showcase their style and fashion tastes. As they share content customers can purchase products directly from their pages. The pages are powered by TVPage which allows the influencers and ambassadors to upload videos, find products and post to their own social media channels.
Why we care. Even the most established brick and mortar retail giants like Macy’s are trying to drive more revenue through digital channels these days. This initiative seems to allow influencers considerable independence in how they represent themselves and Macy’s.
Drift adds revenue acceleration to conversational marketing resources
Drift, known for its B2B conversational marketing platform, has added a new category–Revenue Acceleration. The purpose of revenue acceleration is to connect sales as well as marketing resources to touchpoints during the customer journey.
The new category brings together Drift Chat, AI automation, email, video and the new Drift Prospector platform. Drift Prospector assists sellers in identifying which accounts have the highest intent to buy, so they can connect with them faster, shortening the sales cycle and helping to accelerate revenue for business. The new combination of digital tools and platforms will instantly engage buyers with real-time personalized experiences.
“What we found is that when companies adopted Conversational Marketing, it was not just about marketing,” said Drift CEO and founder David Cancel . “In fact what it was doing was unifying sales and marketing and directly impacting revenue. And not just revenue from new business, but revenue across the entire customer lifecycle.”
Why we care. Conversations are great, but in this pressured B2B environment, those which accelerate conversion are most valuable.
Research shows new variables within influencer marketing
Research from Forrester has found several new variables that have changed influencer marketing during this time of COVID.
Forrester’s new dynamics include:
- During a pandemic influencer posts that come across as “too commercial” are inappropriate and damage the reputation of the influencer and the brand;
- Influencer investment is wasted on industries that are not doing a lot of business, i.e. hospitality, travel and tourism; and
- Influencers can create demand in the online commerce industry.
Forrester also studied 20 influencer marketing businesses and found that March was the lowest month in activations, but that numbers were near normal by May.
Why we care. To the extent traditional influencer marketing involves straight-out hyping of products and services, it’s less welcome under the pandemic. Those kinds of messages are not what people want to hear right now.
IBM launches AI-powered social targeting platform with Influential
With companies seeking the best influencers to represent their brands, IBM has expanded its partnership with Identify to launch a new solution, IBM Watson Advertising Social Targeting.
The solution uses IBM’s AI to help identify the influencers that align with a brand’s values and voice.
Features of the new partnership include:
- Leveraging IBM Watson Natural Language Understanding on the IBM public cloud to process and analyze data from social media for a faster influencer identification process;
- Identifying brand-safe influencers by gauging profanity ratings to recommend potential partners with similar values; and
- Implementing real-time campaign measurement across brand reputation, online behavior, consumer engagement, offline sales and foot traffic.
“Brand reputation matters now more than ever. Using social media to help drive purchase consideration is important as brands implement influencer marketing strategies to establish real connections with consumers,” said IBM SVP of Cognitive Applications Bob Lord.
Why we care. Identifying and evaluating influencers across the vast social universe is no longer a practical task for human eyes. Leave it to Watson.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech Today. Staff authors are listed here.
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