Steve Parker, Jr.

Do you know if your company is making the most of social marketing, social media and social networking? Many marketing professionals misuse these three terms, creating a fair amount of confusion for business professionals who are looking for social services. Let us set the record straight; here is a quick overview of these three important terms.

Most companies are now aware that analytics implementation on their websites is a good idea. But there are varying degrees of analytics that perhaps you have not considered yet. Optimize your company's use of big data analytics, by looking at offline and online matching, predictive modeling and analytics implementation.

Forrester says that pricing models should be based on the 5 C’s, which are customers, competition, commercialization, costs, and communication. Let's focus in on customers and competition, which are essentials in the modern business landscape - so how can these areas can be better leveraged? With the help of marketing intelligence and business analytics.

No matter what your level of analytics implementation is now, there is always room for improvement. Whether it is your strategy, intelligence or technology itself, analytics is more than just tracking code and conversion numbers. At the heart of analytics lies the foundation of your business intelligence. The more you have, the more you know.

If you’ve been saying (and typing) the phrase “the problem with Big Data,” you’ve been looking at it all wrong. Sure, it may seem like a daunting task: harnessing, aggregating and organizing your data, then digging into mining + analysis. But don’t worry; there is plenty to love about Big Data.

We have written about the importance of social research many times, with its opportunities for proactive customer service and online reputation management. However, the most lucrative aspect of social research is its ability to convert data into dollars. Here are some key operational changes you are able to make based on intelligence gleaned from social listening.

Social CRM, as defined by Paul Greenberg, is “the company’s response to the customer’s ownership of the conversation.” That’s right. It’s no longer about you. There are several ways to use social CRM tools in the new consumer experience. Here is a high-level overview of the ways to utilize social CRM that are aligned with the goals we find most valuable.

We’ve all heard of crowdsourcing, or the act of delegating a task to a large group of people. It’s kind of like outsourcing, but to a group. This sounds kind of boring on the surface, doesn’t it? But I’m not talking about the kinds of tasks no one likes or wants to do. Instead, crowdsourcing is used by companies to determine ad campaigns, TV show endings and yes, even the opening of this year’s Super Bowl Halftime Show.

You’ve implemented analytics on your website; great! Now what? We’ve got five sources of great data that are housed on your site. If you haven’t checked out these resources, now is the perfect time.

Revenue generated by global ecommerce is scheduled to hit close 1 trillion dollars by 2013. So there’s no doubt that online shopping isn’t going away anytime soon. Therefore, how can one optimize their online business and prime it to generate a community and repeat customers? Here are some tips for incorporating data + analytics into your ecommerce business in order to improve your bottom line.

You have now decided what your overall marketing budget is for the upcoming period. But where should you invest these dollars? It can be difficult to decide what to allocate for tools, technology, analysis and the media spend itself including agency fees. First, we’ll discuss current trends in marketing budget allocation and then we’ll give you some tips on how to divvy up the money you have at your disposal.