Infosys BrandEdge - Cloud-based Digital Marketing Platform

Research from the Gallup Organization shows that employees with at least one strong relationship at work feel more fulfilled and accomplish much more than those with none. Strong office relationships are hard to come by, however, and developing systems to promote them can create many pitfalls. Despite this, employee collaboration brings with it a berth of benefits, so it's worth implementing and nourishing.

 

First and foremost, it allows employees to complement each other's strengths and weaknesses. Collaborators spend more time working on things they are exceptional at, while delegating their inefficient tasks to others who have better-suited skill sets. Collaboration also allows for increased knowledge-sharing, ensuring that the swells of information coming in from customer communication, social media, and other sources are actually utilized, rather than sitting unused, gathering dust in a department silo.

 

There are challenges to implementing good collaboration, however. One of the largest issues that marketers run into is finding a place in the workflow to promote communication. Telling employees to collaborate is a good first step. If you don't provide the tools needed to easily exchange information and don't communicate the value of collaboration, however, employees are going to fall back into old work habits. If employees don't also share short-term goals or don't trust each other, their partnerships can quickly degenerate into animosity.

 

To ensure your employees collaborate well, team people with complementary strengths and a common mission. It's more important that they share a desired goal than having similar motives. Also, ensure that your employees trust each other, communicate on a regular basis, and are unselfish. If they continuously second-guess each other's work and motives while collaborating, they'll never truly accomplish their full potential.

 

Efficient collaboration isn't the easiest thing to accomplish. If implemented well, however, it can be extremely helpful to your business. With some guidance and the right tools, your company can help your employees communicate more efficiently, share knowledge, and do their best work.

In today's fast paced world, multitasking has become the norm. Corporate executives juggle multiple projects, mothers cook dinner while helping children with homework and a nine-to-five worker can update their Facebook status while watching American Idol in the evenings. Each of these scenarios is an example of how modern life has created a need to be constantly connected and constantly moving.

 

In fact, a 2011 Nielsen survey showed 70 percent of tablet owners and 68 percent of smartphone owners use their devices while watching television.  Although many would assume the use of multiple devices detracts from the ability to focus sufficient attention on one task, it appears the two actually supplement each other.

 

Nielsen calls this phenomenon cross-platforming and has found that viewers who are also using the Internet tend to be more engaged in television programming. For example, someone watching the start of baseball season may find themselves logging in to learn more about new players on their favorite team. Nielsen also found that television viewers commenting on television shows in real time on social media sites provides useful insight to advertisers.

 

GoDaddy.com, notorious for its provocative Super Bowl ad campaigns, capitalized on this very trend, incorporating Quick Response (QR) codes into its 2012 campaign. GoDaddy reports setting sales records from its mobile site after smartphone and tablet users scanned the code while watching the commercial. Additionally, GoDaddy saw record traffic to its website after enticing viewers to two Internet-only commercials via their television ads.

 

GoDaddy isn't the only company taking advantage of media multitasking. Several other major retailers, including the Home Shopping Network (HSN), are including QR codes into their broadcasts to help consumers quickly place orders via their smartphones or tablets. In October 2011, HSN launched its campaign and saw fourth quarter digital sales grow by 19 percent, indicating, at least in part, that consumers were using their mobile devices to access ordering information while watching the network channel.

 

GoDaddy and HSN are just beginning to scratch the surface. With tablet users admitting to Nielsen that they are spending 30 percent of their usage time also watching TV, there is an untapped market many companies have yet to explore. Taking advantage of cross-platforming  enables companies to engage with their target customers through more channels than ever before. Marketing executives should consider this new trend as an open door to call consumers to action.

 

Marketers are often tasked with managing campaigns spanning several channels. Email marketing, social media, web-based marketing and now mobile marketing are all areas that fall within the marketer's realm. The various mediums and methods make measuring results, particularly in terms of an overall campaign, one of the major challenges facing the marketing industry. Shouldn't there be a one-size-fits-all solution? 

 

According to a survey by eMarketer, email marketing is considered one of the simplest marketing mediums to measure, yet only 47 percent of industry professionals believe they can accurately measure the return on investment. Direct mail and online advertising fall in below email, while public relations, search engine optimization (SEO) and social media round out the bottom three in terms of how many marketers believe it's possible to accurately measure ROI. That said, there are a few methods marketers are currently utilizing to overcome the measurement challenge.

 

Just under half of respondents in the same survey rely on web analytics (such as Google Analytics) to monitor and track campaigns. Email marketing software analytics, which vary based on the service used, fall in just under web analytics. The bottom three in this survey include contact form responses (38 percent), social media monitoring (30 percent) and call tracking (27 percent). That means nearly a third of marketers are probably using about four different tracking methods, combining the various bits of data to try to come up with some sort of overall picture illustrating the success or failure of the company's current marketing plan. 

 

But the story doesn't end there. The factors marketers base their ROI on vary just as dramatically as the factors they measure. Some look at an overall net increase in sales, while others look at the number of new customers or new leads. By any stretch, these are not the most specific measures to prove the ROI of a marketing campaign. 

 

Clearly, there's a need for a better solution. Contributing to the disarray of consulting numerous measurement tools, attempting to make so many pieces of unrelated data mesh together for the sake of serving up a pretty picture for company executives can be a colossal waste of time. It's probably safe to assume that most CEOs would prefer their marketing execs spend the majority of their time conceptualizing and implementing the next great marketing campaign, not sitting around for hours trying to fit a square peg (the many pieces of measurement data) into a round hole (a neat and orderly tracking report). 

 

MARKETING TECHNOLOGIES SHOW NO SIGN OF SLOWING

Remember the days of trying to reach the widest audience for your company's products without the Internet? While you may remember this dark period, it's surely a memory most would like to forget. In today's online environment, there are many opportunities for both big and small companies to promote themselves.

Three of the most successful ways are social media, mobile marketing, and cloud computing. Let's explore the benefits of implementing these strategies:

SOCIAL MEDIA STILL CONTINUES TO RISE

Almost everyone has heard of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or LinkedIn (among others). Users of these sites are not just teens and young adults, but people ranging in age from pre-teens to those over 65. With a few simple keywords, a company can reach millions through a quick Tweet, Facebook advertisement, or viral video. Don't believe it? According to a 2011 Search Engine Journal survey on the growth of social media in recent years:

• 1 in 4 Americans watches a YouTube video daily.
• A whopping 53% of employers research job candidates through social media websites.
• 71% of companies have a presence on Facebook, 59% are on Twitter, and 43% use a company blog for marketing.

In addition, a recent study on social media ROI showed that 77% of companies plan to spend more on YouTube, 75% will increase spending on Facebook and blogs, and 73% will invest more in Twitter. These facts paint a clear portrait of the importance of implementing social media marketing strategies--and the massive audience that can be reached.

MOBILE CEMENTS ITS FUTURE

An astounding 1.2 billion people are subscribed to mobile broadband plans. In the U.S., over 25% of people accessing the Internet are mobile only, soon to surpass the percentage of people accessing the Internet through a desktop computer. By 2015, it is predicted that mobile-ad spending will increase nearly seven-fold, rising from $3.3 billion in 2011 to an estimated $20.6 billion.

Whether by incorporating text, A2P, email, IM, or automated alerts--all of which are easy, cost-effective advertising methods--marketers have more methods than ever to reach consumers via mobile. And as advertising becomes more targeted and the technology improves, mobile marketing will become a significant component of all marketing plans in the future.

CLOUD COMPUTING CHANGES THE WAY BUSINESS RUNS

Did you know that 50% of enterprises began the shift to cloud computing in 2011 and by 2013 70% of mobile users will expect to consume cloud-based services?

Cloud computing providers offer everything from secure data storage to the latest enterprise resource planning systems and remote data access. Customers are able to have a seamless experience using any device they'd like to within their cloud.

This allows for greater flexibility, with the user being able to move from device to device while their data remains stored and accessible across all platforms. Cloud computing is also a cost-effective solution because it eliminates the hassle of inaccessible systems and software crashes, and reduces costs associated with IT personnel and system upgrades.

With the advent of online marketing tools such as social media websites, mobile marketing, and cloud computing, we are now living in a golden age for companies to efficiently and cost effectively reach as many customers as is possible.

 

 More and more businesses are using social media for marketing, yet most fail to utilize it to its fullest potential. In 2011, over 40 percent of companies were turning to social media platforms to market their brands, according to a Regus survey.  However, many brands are not utilizing social media analytics in order to maximize their ROI on social media engagement--and that's a serious mistake. Instead of just assuming your efforts are working, you must specifically examine how they are succeeding in order to craft and maintain your presence. Here are five reasons why social reporting is key.

 

1.  Helps identify conversions. The evolution of web analytics now allows brand managers and CMOs to measure and monitor which calls to action are currently most successful on their websites. This way you can track exactly where you're excelling, and where you may need to boost your efforts.

 

2. Helps determine where to spend your time. Engagement, reach, and other quantitative data help marketers determine where to invest more time for maximum effect.  Social Media Examiner's 2011 analysis found marketers who spend six hours or more per week on social media have stronger lead generation, and 78 percent report an increase in website traffic. But the key to using your time effectively is knowing exactly where your energies are best directed. Using analytics can help brand managers maximize results while minimizing effort.

 

3. Helps you understand your customers. Analytics can provide insight into what, when, where, and how your customers are interacting with a particular brand.  For instance, Mashable reports that businesses who post outside normal business hours see a 20 percent increase in engagement. This is a great example of why brand managers need to use analytics to get a more comprehensive picture of their target audience.

 

4. Helps marketers look at the big picture. Beyond the day-to-day, analytics help you look at long-term growth. Too often data analysts focus on narrow data sets and forget how the data is applied to the rest of the business. Kaushik.net praises data analysts who report on economic value, conversions, and profitability (big picture metrics) because these metrics are usually what's most important to businesses.

 

5. Helps analysts calculate real ROI. At the end of the day, the one question that CMOs and brand managers want an answer to is, "Are my campaigns increasing the bottom line?" With social reporting, brand managers are able to track revenue and costs associated with specific campaigns.

 

Businesses not monitoring social metrics are missing opportunities to refine and focus messages to their target consumers, drive conversions, and boost ROI. Ultimately, utilizing social reporting is something you can't afford not to do.

 

Marketers are shifting or have already shifted to digital marketing because of flexibility, scalability, and measurable results in real time.

 

The proof is the in numbers. 

 

A 2011 study commissioned by Social Media Examiner showed that 88% of all marketers said their companies' social media efforts created more exposure for their businesses.

 

Another benefit was improved traffic and increased subscribers. The study also showed that almost two-thirds of the marketers surveyed said their companies experienced a rise in search engine rankings because of social media marketing. About half of the marketers also reported social media generated qualified leads.

 

That same study showed digital marketing increased sales even when there was a minimal time investment into the marketing plan.

 

Digital marketing strategies also don't require a long-term time commitment and are often more cost-effective than traditional marketing.

 

Many expect the trend of spending more on digital marketing to continue. A recent study published by  Duke University's Fuqua School of Business showed that within the next five year marketers expect to spend 19.5% of their budgets on social media -- almost triple what they currently spend. 

Internet marketing is expected to increase 14.3% over the next year, as the percentage on traditional advertising is predicted to plummet by 161.5%, the study showed.

 

Advertisers want to spend on media that their customers are paying attention to on a regular basis. We should expect this free-fall to hit an equilibrium level at some point in the next few years. But until then, agencies will need to continue to morph their capabilities toward the web in order to survive.

 

A separate study by the IBM Institute for Business Value based on surveys of chief marketing officers showed that three areas need to be focused on to improve digital marketing including delivering value to empower customers, create lasting relationships with those clients and being able to measure marketing's contribution to the business in relevant terms.

 

The study showed that 63% of survey respondents believed marketing return on investment will become the most important measure of success within five years -- but only 44% felt prepared to manage that heightened importance on ROI.

 

Marketers need to continue to adapt to the expanding use of digital marketing to keep their businesses in the forefront of advertising.

 

You have 3 million unique visitors a month and a well-designed website. So why aren't people signing up for your newsletter, downloading your software, or purchasing your products? The reason could be that your website, as beautiful as it may be, isn't set up to help visitors convert.

 

A common visual guide that organizations use to help explain the conversion process is known as the "conversion funnel." The conversion funnel is meant to show the journey from landing on your website all the way through the purchase, download, sign-up, or any other predetermined conversion.

 

1.      Quality Content vs. Quantity of Content

The old adage "if you build it, they will come" isn't necessarily true when it comes to websites. Just because you have a well-designed site doesn't mean people are going to find your website and sign-up for your weekly newsletter.

 

In order to truly be effective and have people engage with your brand online, you have to have quality content. Notice I didn't say quantity of content. Quality content is usually content geared toward a specific audience that has targeted keywords throughout and has a high chance of being shared on social channels. Having web visitors land on your site thanks to a piece a quality content usually infers that the web visitor will be interested in other aspects of your site, such as a product offering, whitepaper, blog posts, etc.. Creating quality content is the starting point to bettering your website's conversion rate.

 

2.      Top Tier Navigation

When a new visitor lands on your website for the first time, they will interact with the website based on their past experiences on the web. It is essential that your website's navigation is clear and easy to use in order for your visitors to quickly and efficiently find relevant content.

 

Navigation is part of the UI/UX (user interface/user experience). If visitors on your website have a positive experience, they are likely to return. Return visitors are more likely the convert.

 

*Navigation is the key to help a web visitor's progress through the conversion funnel.

 

3.      Easy-to-Understand Calls to Action

Complementary calls to action are essential for increasing your conversion rate on your website. After all, it doesn't hurt to ask (subtly). For example, let's say a web visitor is on your site reading an article about the top tech trends in 2012. They happen to see a call to action on the right rail of the page that says, "For more info on tech trends, sign up here." Wouldn't it be safe to assume that the user is more likely to sign up than someone who isn't interested in tech trends?

 

This goes back to the quality content point. If you are creating quality content and guiding your web visitors through the conversion funnel by top tier navigation and calls to action, you should begin to notice an increase in return visitors and a better conversion rate to boot.

 

4.      Analytics and Tracking

The reason I left analytics at the end was to make sure it wasn't forgotten. If you aren't tracking web activity on your site and utilizing the data to make better business decisions, then your conversion rate will never reach its full potential.

 

Most free analytics software will give your organization the ability to track which content pages are the most popular, where exactly visitors are in the conversion funnel, and what keywords are driving traffic to your site. This knowledge should provide your organization with the insight necessary to make changes on your website and further meet the needs of your potential customers.

Editor's Note: This blog by Ajay Anand is the third feature of the blog series in our By Invitation segment.

The Future has arrived!

Friends,

Please join me as I take immense pleasure and pride in presenting Infosys BrandEdge - the first comprehensive Cloud-based platform that Simplifies Digital Marketing.

Yesterday at 10.00 PM, India time, Infosys unveiled two marvels to the business community - Infosys BrandEdge and our state-of-the-art Infosys Experience center in London. It couldn't have been a better pairing as both are designed with a vision into the future of business, technology and innovation. The first-of-its kind platform - Infosys BrandEdge - has been very well received by the industry practitioners and we have already received some great reviews by the experts.

Let me pick up the threads from my last blog and share with you the promise of Infosys BrandEdge with you - as we are doing today with the entire business world.

Our key promise to marketers and other users of this solution is that we will deliver a business solution to their business problems and be measured and paid based on business outcomes. We cannot make this promise if our offering was only about technology and tools. Technology is just an enabler. We have packaged our Infosys BrandEdge IP with tools and partners enabling us to offer comprehensive solution. For example, we have partnered with Fabric - a WPP company - to jointly take this solution to market. This means that marketers get the best of technology and marketing skills in one solution. We have combined forces to offer a deep understanding of the processes, tools and technologies in the marketing domain and, powered by a world-class IP, are delivering a best-in-class solution. This unique approach to solving a business problem has been the key to our success and will be the key differentiator, as we have already seen in our 3 wins.

As I conclude this blog, I would like to say that Infosys BrandEdge delivers a differentiated solution for the client and a differentiated offering for Infosys.  This is truly "Innovation in action" on multiple fronts:
a) Solution Innovation - A standout turnkey solution for marketers: Infosys BrandEdge provides a solution that simplifies the challenges of Digital Marketing and takes care of marketing at both the enterprise and consumer levels
b) A Business Model innovation - A true winner for Infosys: The hosted cloud plus services based Infosys BrandEdge is a new type of offering from. Infosys BrandEdge has seen excellent resonance in the market and is creating unprecedented buzz in CSG community.
c) Innovation in our ability to acquire new customer segments - Our strategic partnerships fundamentally change our positioning in the market place. Infosys BrandEdge opens doors to enter niche marketing areas of large enterprises leading to large scale marketing transformation opportunities.
This is clearly a great way to accelerate the client's innovation agenda and catalyze our Infosys 3.0 journey.
This is definitely, the beginning of some really exciting times for Team BrandEdge and Infosys as we set about on delivering our promise to our clients.
Coming soon on InfyTV, are the videos that bring this wonderful story to life.
Also see the Infosys BrandEdge in action in this interesting video and to learn more about Infosys BrandEdge visit - www.infosys.com/brandedge
In case you have missed the earlier parts of the Infosys BrandEdge story, catch them here -
Let's Simplify Digital Marketing
The Future of Digital Marketing is Blue

 

In my last Blog, I shared with you the genesis of the Digital Marketing Platform - the inception, the research, the challenges and the opportunities. But as they say "Great ideas need landing gear as well as wings", today I will talk about how we set about shaping the platform. 

Through our research and talking to clients and practitioners of digital marketing, 2 clear areas of challenges were identified - Efficiency and Effectiveness; both addressing to a different aspect of digital marketing. While it would have been easier for us to come up with separate solutions for each, we decided to take up the challenge of addressing both through a single platform - this would give our platform a level of comprehensiveness that did not exist in any single tool / solution in the market. Out of this quest was born BLUE - a simple yet ingenious framework to wrap around our Infosys Digital Marketing Platform.  

Let me tell you a bit about BLUE. Long considered a corporate color, BLUE is associated with intelligence, stability and expertise. Many great enterprises have a theme centered around this popular color - IBM has a big connection with BLUE, VolksWagen has 'BLUE motion', Mercedes has 'BLUE efficiency', Nike has a 'Bleed BLUE' campaign, our own Bangalore boy Mr. Mallya has a Blue brand. The time had come for Infy to have its own BLUE but with a difference. Our BLUE is not just about creating a theme / campaign based on a popular corporate color but has a clear meaning - Our BLUE has the entire solution embodied within its name and stands for Build, Listen, Understand and Engage. 

Samson and I have debated many a times on what our BLUE should be called. I personally like "BLUE Reach" because ultimately marketing is about reaching the right consumer with the right message at the right time on the right channel. My team members have their own naming preferences. Net Net we have not yet come to a conclusion. For now we are patenting "BLUE Digital Marketing Platform". If you have any suggestions please send me your ideas and I will happily evaluate and if it happens to be the chosen one you can expect a big treat from meJ 

Continue reading "The Future of Digital Marketing is BLUE" »

Back in October of 2010 when we started exploring ideas to build a new business platform, 'Digital Marketing' was only a bullet item in the BIZP 'idea bank' list. For no particular reason, I picked Digital Marketing - probably because it was the first bullet item. I call it serendipity! Like Forrest Gump's mama said "Life is like a box of chocolates and you never know what you're gonna get".

I am amazed by how much we have learnt and how much we have achieved as a team since then to build a blockbuster Digital Marketing Platform.  Building this platform has been a fantastic experience and the best phase of my 17+ year career with Infy. I must acknowledge that we have had more than our share of luck in this period. We have responded to 3 RFPs and won all three, including the famous multi-million dollar GlaxoSmithKline deal. As the launch date for this platform draws near, let me share with you some ideas on Digital Marketing and how we went about creating this 'Navaratna' platform. 

Even as enterprises were shifting from one-way marketing of products to anonymous buyers and moving towards dialog-based marketing to consumers, along came Digital Marketing. With its interactive channels that enabled marketers to connect with consumers, Digital Marketing promised to take enterprises to the nirvana of consumer-centricity with ease and rapidity.

But things are rarely that simple!

We set out to do a systematic study before we built our IP. We talked with clients, account teams and analysts, undertook market research, and looked at RFPs. Through all this, we made key discoveries. There were a lot of white spaces to fill and we set about doing just that.

Two clear problem areas emerged from our research:

Problem Area # 1: Digital Marketing had become complex. Marketers handled multiple brands, markets, products, tools, agencies, languages, compliance requirements, and verticals - and each came with its challenges. For example, reuse of Digital Assets across campaigns was poor and, in many cases, not possible. Another pain point is the lack of marketing process standardization - each brand within the enterprise does its own digital thing. The solution needed to meet the varying demands of multiple components of a fragmented environment. Doing digital had become difficult for enterprises. 'Efficiency' in campaign creation was critical.

Problem Area # 2: Thanks to digital consumers, marketers had access to unprecedented amounts of data. Overwhelmed with processing and making sense of this data, marketers needed a solution that gave them insights. Through it, they could make decisions faster, deliver the right message to the right consumer at the right time on the right digital channel, and create campaigns that deliver engagement and ROI. Essentially improve the 'Effectiveness' of campaigns.

The need was to create a Digital Marketing Platform that simplified this complex environment even as it promoted consumer-centricity, speed, and efficiency. Since marketing involves a continuous feedback loop between the enterprise and its consumers, we believed the platform needed to fulfill the challenges of Digital Marketing at those two levels and that's when this germ of an idea got transformed into a platform that could well redefine the future of Digital Marketing.

As Alfred Bernhard Nobel puts it "If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied"....We believed that this was our "one good idea".

Well folks, that's the story of inception of the Digital Marketing Platform. Watch this space for my next blog to see how we transformed this germ of an idea from a mere "bullet point" into a game changer platform.

If I told you "The world is undergoing a tectonic shift", you would call "the most boring first line for a blog".

So let's talk facts - 80% of the savings are in the western world and 80% of the growth is coming out of the eastern economies. The conservative eastern economies are still saving 30-35% while the splurging western mindset has borrowed heavily, some upto 200% of their GDP.

What this means is, suddenly, there are blue ocean markets and opportunities, massive ones, where growth is propelling spending. Spending of time on digital channels, buying of goods and services on commerce avenues, checking out on products etc.

All this frenzy is putting lot of data out there on the digital channels - FB, Twitter, FourSquare, PInterest, LinkedIn and many more. Data is growing at 48% YoY and is estimated at 3 zettabytes in 2012 (10 power 21 or 2 power 70). Expect several yottabytes (billion zetta) out there in a decade.

Now you are sitting up! This isn't a boring blog.

The brand manager, in order to run targeted campaigns, had to earlier contend with getting right data from brick n mortar, from directories, shops etc. Today, she has to overcome the digital data deluge and dig deeper, sift and sort and mine among the yottabytes, to find and understand consumers and their friends who are potential consumers. Every 'footprint in the sand' needs to be captured. Not every prospect and consumer is going to create a footfall in your ecosystem and hence every 'footprint in a foreign sand' also needs to be brought in - digital, analog, physical and every domains in-between.

My argument is that Digital platforms must have the ability to handle unstructured, semi-structured data in addition to the relational data across digital and physical channels and deliver the "real 360 view". This is one place where technology is behind the curve and this is one place where there is big opportunity today for the global corporations. "Real 360" is the answer to finding the consumer in this yotta.

What is your view on this zetta yotta thingie? Is all this relevant data? Is there a 'Real 360' possibility? Do you feel there is adequate technology today to support this? Are corporations and their ecosystems geared up to handle this? Tell us..

Most new models go through hype cycles. I remember the .com days when an IT firm with a knock-out SCM solution was tipped to overtake Microsoft in valuation. It was 'cool' for me to work in a $3M fancy-named startup than in a $300M IT company. 12 years later, it is a different world.

Digital transformation is going back through the hype cycle right now.
Thanks to FB and Twitter, Google and Groupon, we now have a billion other believers. Digital marketing, Digital Commerce, Digital Service, Digital whatnot..

During the hype cycle, companies flood the market with a myriad of tools, and give them all kinds of funky names. If you analyzed the number of other names by which marketing is known in the digital world, other than digital marketing, you will find a dozen other names and be perplexed.

We believe this too shall pass!

Marketing is about three things: a savvy marketer, an interested customer and a great brand. It shall ever remain so. It is about the people and not the technology.

We believe digital marketing tools should ask and address these two basic questions:

# How has life become simpler for the marketer after she uses my tools i.e., - is digital enablement promoting efficiency of building the assets

# How is the framework better enabled to listen and understand customers i.e., is digital enablement promoting effectiveness of business outcomes to my topline and bottomline.

A great digital marketing solution drives efficiency and ensures effectiveness. No more. No less.