Communicating and reaching to customers is important to any business and that part is played by establishing connection through social media platforms. It is important to have a sound social media strategy for improving business. Jessica Oaks (Editor, Freshly Techy), writes in her article about some tips for stepping up your social media strategy to improve overall business. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/jessoaks11/2015-09-04/5-tips-strong-social-media-strategy

Marketers must focus on demand generation to increase revenue. This will in turn lead to more sales. Demand generation can re position your product or service. Shannon Prager (a valued contributor to Business 2 Community) writes in her article about some points that will help in demand generation. They are: Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Retargeting, Marketing Automation and Personalizing Message. To know more, follow:  http://www.business2community.com/strategy/5-components-of-a-successful-demand-generation-strategy-01318399

Content marketing is in in the marketing world, but, custom content is making headlines nowadays. According to a recent research, it was found that 78% of chief marketing officers see custom content as the future of marketing. Custom content will give local businesses the kind of reach and engagement they need. On the other hand, native advertising is making headlines nowadays. Native advertising is the pay-to-play way to get custom content to your target audience. Columnist Will Scott writes in his article about three reasons why native advertising can put custom content to good use. To know more, follow: http://marketingland.com/powerful-new-tool-local-business-toolbox-content-marketing-going-native-advertising-140694

Retailers must capitalize on how their customers discover them. According to a research, it was found that digital interactions are expected to influence 64 cents of every dollar spent in retail stores by the end of 2015. Online-to-offline commerce, or O2O, refers to a business model that utilizes online marketing efforts that affect a shopper’s interaction with a physical store. Retailers must incorporate an O2O strategy to measure their effectiveness. There are different O2O models according to columnist Adam Weiss. They are: Printable & Mobile Coupons, Local Offers, Card-Linked Offers, Location-Based Rewards and CRM matching. Read more at: http://marketingland.com/capitalizing-digital-trail-offline-purchase-2-141008

In a recent research it was found that cloud-based CRM solutions account for 47% of deployments due to their price accessibility, ease of deployment, and integration with other cloud-based applications. If your CRM doesn’t work properly, most of the departments will find difficult to operate. A thorough service level agreement (SLA) is a necessary part of protecting your business operations. There are a few key areas you need covered. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/5-sla-areas-you-cant-skip-with-a-cloudbased-crm-69747

Michele Goetz of Forrester says, "Seems that the expectations that CRM systems could provide a single trusted view of the customer was starting to hit a reality check." Data quality issues affect 91% of businesses according to a research. There are a few ways to improve your data quality in CRM records. They are: Data Deduplication, Standardize Data Collected, Examine Data Collection Process, and Run Data Quality Initiatives Frequently. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/how-to-improve-the-data-quality-of-crm-records-69748

According to a research, it was found that, personalized marketing has an influence over 59 % of shoppers, with one-third of consumers indicating a preference for customization in the content offered to them. CRM solution contains significant data for creating a targeted experience for customers. They are: Audience Segmentation, Email Personalization, Post-Sales Customized Messaging, One-on-One Communication, and Relevant Up-sells and Cross-Sales. Read more at:  http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/5-ways-to-use-crm-applications-to-spice-up-your-sales-69746

Columnist Rebecca Lieb, writes in her article about some content marketing trends. The first trend is about content strategy and user experience. Second trend is all about machine generated content. The third trend is about contextual content. The fourth one is about paid search, native advertising, recommendation engines, asking users to share, paid promotion on social networks and last but not the least is the ad Spend vs. content investment. Read more at: http://marketingland.com/5-content-trends-watch-140102

Keeping accounts is important to every business, including small and medium business also. Bookkeeping is the first step in keeping records of financial transactions which includes records kept in a journal, ledger, accounts receivable and payable, etc. Bookkeeping is important as it keeps track of the company’s money, show how the company performs on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, and help to prepare the company’s income tax return. Bethany Wesch (writes about blogging, branding and online marketing), writes in her article about different general accounting systems that all small businesses are expected to have. Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/finance/important-accounting-systems-all-small-businesses-should-have-in-place-0324326

85% of millennials have been disappointed by a company’s service and support in the past year, and nearly 50% of those respondents have had a disappointing experience in the past 30 days, according to a new survey of over 1,000 millennials. So, it’s time for companies to look beyond stereotypes, and start to learn more about how millennials prefer to communicate with brands. Jason Wesbecher (CMO of Mattersight), writes in his article about what millennials expect from customer service. Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/customer-experience/lost-connection-millennials-left-wanting-customer-service-01315504

CRM software is different for different organizations. Peer reviews & recommendations are important while choosing a CRM software. But, the most important thing during initial research is that it needs to pass a technical evaluation which includes factors unique to your business, such as your infrastructure, workflow, end-user capability and business mobility. A thorough evaluation process is necessary to avoid deploying a CRM which is not suited to your business. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/what-to-look-for-when-youre-testing-a-crm-solution-69709

CRM can be powerful if we understand its features & functionality correctly.  This article link will tell us about some tips for success that have nothing to do with the platform you choose, but it depends on how you use CRM in your organization. They are: Understand your customer experience from the customer's point of view; be prepared to be flexible; and training. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/winning-with-a-crm-69708

In any online marketing, detailed reporting is vital. It tells us about the work being done. A simple reporting should take no more than 25% of your hours. Columnist Matt Umbro, in his article link, discusses about some ways to minimize time spent on reporting and making it efficient. He tells us about some techniques for better reporting efficiency. They are: Determine what’s necessary; Automate what you can; and have an honest conversation with your client. Read more at: http://marketingland.com/25-rule-reporting-matters-139230

Nowadays, businesses take advantage of the various avenues of digital social networking promotions, but the challenge is to find a mobile marketing strategy. A research from Forrester found that 84% of consumers use their smartphones while in a store to go online — more than in any other location, and therefore retail and mall developer marketers have an opportunity to influence in-mall purchases through targeted mobile engagement. Integration is the key. Columnist Allan Haims, tells us in his article about how to centralize the efforts. Read more at: http://marketingland.com/retail-marketing-strategies-connecting-dots-139673

Nowadays, marketers have mobile strategy for ad landing page and there are three accepted methods to make web pages work on mobile devices.  They are: responsive design, dynamic serving and maintaining separate mobile URLs. Of these three, in responsive design, mobile and desktop visitors view the exact same URL. Columnist Abraham Nord, writes in his article about the advantages & disadvantages of responsive design. The advantages are: 1. Multi-Device User Experience; 2. sharing & saving; 3. Page Management; and 4. Conversion Rate Optimization. Read more at: http://searchengineland.com/pros-cons-responsive-landing-pages-sem-228991

Account based marketing or ABM is the solution to the marketing challenges faced by B2B companies. ABM can target 500 or 5000 accounts at a time. One of the advantages of ABM is that it helps marketing and sales teams are on the same page, thereby, sales and marketing teams share the same goals and the same metrics for measuring progress. Author, Peter Isaacson, in his article link tells us about some key components which are important while implementing ABM. Read more at: http://marketingland.com/account-based-marketing-back-basics-137446

For any business, the impact of the IoT is a lot greater. The supply chain for most companies is not the hottest area of operations. When products are not properly shipped, when things go wrong that they pay attention to the people who run the supply chain. IoT is also transforming the supply chain. David Gillman (an analyst with Studio B.), writes about how it is transforming supply chain management. They are: Real-Time Tacking; Faster and Better Information; More Accurate Planning; Advanced Analytics; and IoT into the Future. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/inside-erp/5-ways-the-internet-of-things-is-transforming-supply-chain-management-69666

Retailers started using analytics to manage their stores and warehouses. They then started using analytics for planning local events and competitor's promotions and campaigns. Through point of sale, they understood individual customers. The only problem they faced was this data was known and analyzed post-sales. Now with mobile commerce, retailers collect and analyze data embedded in mobile devices. So, the challenge shifted from how to collect data, to how to get the user's permission and approval to collect and use the data.  Read more at:  http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/mobile-applications-businesses/mobile-commerce-strategies-contextually-relevant-opportunities-moments-and-environments-69652

To be a business process analyst, one need to have a set of skill. But, one need to have some more specific industry knowledge which will help them to become more successful. Here are five of the most critical skills that will help one to bring value to a company. They are: Communication; Analytical Thinking; Critical Thinking; Group Facilitation; and Relationship Building. Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/strategy/what-are-the-critical-skills-for-a-business-process-analyst-01312272

Visual marketing has become important in today’s business world. It is found that the average consumer prefers visual content compared to word-based interactions. Forbes Insight reports that nearly 60% of senior executives prefer to watch video instead of reading text, if both are available on the same page. But, visual marketing is more than giving consumers what they want and can be a huge asset for marketers who want a sharing response from consumers. Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/the-power-of-imagery-in-content-marketing-01310162