Tailored and Targeted Marketing in the B2B Space

The problem facing B2B marketers is that they have not been given the same tools and capabilities available for B2C marketers to reach people on more than 500 channels available. That's because they don't have integrated data on the people they need to target, which hampers their addressable audience and reach.

The 2016 Forrester Report, “B2B Budget Plans Show That It's Time For A Digital Wake-Up Call," found that even though two-thirds of B2Bs indicated they would be increasing their digital budgets within the year, only about one-fifth considered their teams truly adept at leveraging data and insights for effective digital campaigns. 

Darian Shirazi, CEO and cofounder of Radius, a leader in connecting B2B data and intelligence spoke with me about the big challenge that B2B marketers have had in trying to target a CIO. 

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Targeted Advertising for B2B

Mixed Reality Marketing

Picture to illustrate app courtesy of Trigger

Mixed reality experiences began playing an important role in marketing a few years ago. Jason Yim, the CEO of Trigger, “The Mixed Reality Agency™,” explained what makes it so effective.  

“On the marketing side, there are two big things that mixed reality can do that others can't,” says Yim. “One is product visualization and the second is the sharing of user-generated social content.”

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Why Marketing Through Mixed Reality Works

Smart Waste Management with IoT

ace it, waste happens. Every supply chain must deal with it. That’s why there are waste management companies and solutions, though they have been hampered by inadequate information flow, which leads to another form of waste – that of time and energy. Now, IoT is enabling smarter solutions, and rapid-application development (RAD) platforms make it faster and easier to implement effective waste management.

UK-based ISB Global, a Value Added Reseller (VAR) of SAP software solutions, is also a Software Solutions & Technology Partner (SSTP) for Waste & Recycling One. That software solution, based on SAP Business One ERP platform, creates smart waste management application based on analytics and mobility.  

Below is the video in which ISB describes how its smart bins systems increase efficiency, lowers logistical costs, and reduces carbon emissions as a result. It also automates the process of identifying the best route for the day’s waste collection needs and the generation of bills based on real time data on the work done.

The sensors pick up on how full the bins are to put in the information that optimizes the pick-up time to when they are full but not yet overflowing. Bluetooth Beacons provide location trackers that can ascertain that they are located where they should be to avoid any confusion or delay for pickup.

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IoT Enables Smarter Waste Management

A simple tool to counter ad fraud

Do you know where your ads are? The less than satisfactory answer to that question has prompted some companies to pull back from the digital ad space.  Pixel tracking may solve that problem.
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Where Your Digital Ads Are At

Just Slightly Off Target

As I was going through my emails to see which to read and which to zap, I noticed this one from Target because the subject line "Women subject line should read: This sweater deal unravels tonight."
Here's the snip of the email as proof.

It looks like the former cake decorator may have finally learned not to misspell "birthday" and moved on to a job in charge of sending out Target's emails.

NFC taps IoT's potential for marketing

Once upon a time, retail stores tried to get our attention with special displays, signs and stickers, but now they can tap into the power of IoT to communicate a lot more than just “New!” or “Special!” The smartphones we carry can convey marketing messages built into the displays or even the product themselves with just a tap.

Thin Film Electronics ASA is a global leader in NFC (near field communication). It creates printed tags, labels, and systems that incorporate memory, sensors, and wireless communication to enable one-to-one digital marketing through just a tap of a smartphone.

Together with GlaxoSmithKline, it deploys Thinfilm's SpeedTap™ tags in interactive “smart” shelves featuring Flonase®  in stores in six Canadian provinces. Customers who tap their NFC-enabled smartphones to the shelves can get information about the product at the moment of decision.

Matt Bright, Senior Director of Product and Technical Marketing, Thinfilm, spoke with us about why the “smart” shelves are just the tip of the iceberg in IoT marketing. We're not only talking about delivering marketing messages, but being able to customize and adapt to them and pick up the trail of the customer journey even beyond the buying decision.

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Tying the Physical and Digital in NFC

Holograms Enable 3D Marketing

With every brand vying for people's attention, messages on a screen no longer stand out. That's why some brands are turning to augmented reality, and the possibilities opened up by holograms of famous personalities. Augmented Reality hologram company, VNTANA, has been used by brands like Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz and Pepsi to engage and collect data on potential customers.

We spoke with Ashley Crowder, VNTANA's CEO and Co-Founder about how brands make themselves stand out – literally – with holograms. It's effective for “any public face where brands trying to engage with consumers in the moment,” she said VNTANA partnered with multiple brands this year at Comic-Con 2017 to bring fans one-of-a-kind hologram experiences.

The holograms are so effective at drawing people in because they are “wowed” by the 3D images of familiar figures, Crowder explained. The interactivity it invites make it “seems like a game” or a “futuristic photo booth.” Those who use it don't perceive it as an advertisement or a way of collecting their data via facial recognition that picks up on age, gender, and emotions.

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3D Marketing with Holograms

Automation Will Define Industry 4.0

pic from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Factory_Automation_Robotics_Palettizing_Bread.jpg

As the Industrial Internet revolutionizes manufacturing, the essential difference between the automation of the past and Industry 4.0 automation is scale.

The linking of the physical and digital in the Internet of Things has enabled manufacturing’s next evolution: the Industrial Internet, or Industry 4.0. Shawn Fitzgerald, vice president of marketing at Thomas, recently shared some insights on the effects of increasing automation and sensor integration.

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The Future is Automated