Author: Franz Malten Buemann

We’ve always aimed to chart our own course at Buffer for how we approach traditional business practices, and severance is no different. Recently, we’ve adjusted our severance policy to apply in more situations. We’ve introduced the concept of “mutual separations” for the cases when a teammate and their manager both feel that the teammate’s chapter at Buffer has come to an end. We strive to be generous to these teammates who have spent a portion of their careers and lives with us at Buffer.In this post, we’ll detail our severance policy, the concept of mutual separations, and our adjustments over the last year. Buffer’s severance policyInvoluntary departures are the traditional cases for severance. This term captures any instance of teammates being let go or laid off. Our regular severance policy for involuntary departures of teammates who’ve been on the team for at least 90 days is:  6 weeks of base salary + 2 weeks for each full year past the first year at Buffer, with a maximum of 12 weeks total.For example, if someone had been on the Buffer team for three years, they would be eligible for six weeks of severance pay, plus four additional weeks (2 years * 2 weeks each), so they would receive ten weeks of severance pay. Teammates also keep any equipment Buffer purchased, including their computers.What are mutual separations?A few years ago, we began using the concept of “mutual separation.” Mutual separations are different from traditional involuntary departures, which happen because of layoffs, a role elimination, or if a teammate is not performing at the level needed for their role. In a mutual separation, both the teammate and their manager feel that the role is no longer a good fit, and the best-case scenario is a planned, amicable departure.When that happens, the teammate and manager work together and come to an agreement about the timeline for the teammate’s last day. Otherwise, the teammate may choose to wait until they have another job lined up and then only give two weeks’ notice (or less), or the manager may choose to let the teammate go. Compared to these alternatives, mutual separations are usually easier on everyone involved. Mutual separations also often feel much more human; the transition is more organized, and the process is less emotionally taxing, which has many benefits to the remaining team. By paying full severance in these cases, we hope to invite and incentivize teammates to feel comfortable starting these conversations about their future without concern that they will miss out on severance if that conversation feels a little bit too much like a resignation.With all of this in mind, we decided to give full severance to teammates who leave due to mutual separation. It feels like the best way to honor their time spent building Buffer alongside us and to make the transition as easy as possible for everyone.How the mutual separation policy has worked out so farSince introducing the concept of mutual separations at Buffer, we have seen more departures happening this way. For example, in 2022, 19 percent of our departures were mutual (3 out of 16). We still have some folks move on purely voluntarily, but now we also see teammates open up the conversation earlier when they can feel that they are no longer a great fit for the role needed. This feels healthy to us, and we want to continue to enable teammates and managers to consider this option when it feels right. Not all resignations fall into this category; it is not an exact science. Ultimately it’s up to the manager (with support from leadership and/or the People team) to determine what falls into this category. Generally, we will consider a mutual separation when a teammate has a history of good performance, and either a role change is necessary that takes the role in a direction that’s at odds with the teammate’s skills or interests or the teammate’s performance is no longer meeting the needs of the role and team. We are hoping that this shift to giving severance to folks separating from Buffer mutually encourages and allows teammate departures— a hard but natural event in a company’s lifecycle —to be mutual, organized, amicable, and ultimately in everyone’s best interest. We’d love to hear what you think of this policy at Buffer, send us a tweet anytime to share your thoughts!

Welcome to HubSpot Marketing News! Tap in for campaign deep dives, the latest marketing industry news, and tried-and-true insights from HubSpot’s media team. 
Many YouTube viewers click “skip ad” as soon as possible, but Nissan figured out how to keep viewers engaged for four hours without reaching for the “skip” button. Keep reading to learn how.
The automotive industry is ripe for marketing innovation. Traditionally, outside of the occasional car commercial featuring vehicles driving through various terrains and excursions, most of the marketing happened at car dealerships.
Until the pandemic.
Between travel restrictions, high interest rates, and supply chain issues that caused manufacturing disruptions, the automotive industry has had major growth challenges over the past few years, and relying on dealerships alone to push sales isn’t cutting it.
With more customers looking to facilitate the car buying process online, car manufacturers’ ability to embrace digital marketing tactics is more important than ever for making sales.
Earlier this year, Nissan launched a new ad that is refreshingly different from traditional marketing tactics associated with car companies.

The manufacturer posted a four-hour-long video to its YouTube channel featuring a custom Lofi playlist that serves as the soundtrack to an animated character’s road trip. The animated character happens to be driving a Nissan ARIYA and passes several Nissan billboards on their drive.
Since launching in February, the video has racked up over 17 million views and 3,500 overwhelmingly positive comments. Here’s what viewers had to say:

“I’ve been letting this ad run for 20 minutes.  I’ve sent it to friends, saved it in my favorites, and hadn’t ever considered a Nissan before – but who knows now?  I genuinely want to shake the hand of whoever greenlit this in the advertising department.  It’s a very normal chill hop reel, but that’s what’s so uncommon and endearing about it. Amazing job & sincere kudos for having your finger on the pulse on this one!”
“At first, I was like? ‘Is this really a 4-hour ad?’ Then I was like, ‘Damn, this beat is fire.’”
“This might be the first-ever ad (and longest) that I didn’t want to skip.”

In addition to having the video listed on its own channel, Nissan also runs the ad on other Lofi YouTube channels. The spot blends right in with the Lofi playlists audiences are looking for, and doesn’t tempt Lofi fans to click “skip ad.”
Why is the Nissan ARIYA Lofi ad so captivating?
Well, the music, for starters. Lofi stands for low fidelity, a genre that combines elements of jazz, hip-hop, and pop to create dreamy, laid-back music tracks.
Originating in the early 2000s, Lofi music has become a popular genre, particularly on YouTube, that people often listen to while working, studying, or trying to relax.
Many commenters on Nissan’s video complimented how good the music was, and noted it was a playlist they would want to come back and listen to again and again.
Inspired by Lofi Girl
The ad takes clear inspiration from Lofi Girl, a popular YouTube channel that streams Lofi music 24/7 and has racked up billions of views (yes billions, with a B) since 2017.
Recently, the Lofi Girl YouTube channel made headlines for unlocking a new character.
Fans of Lofi Girl were in for a surprise when a mysterious countdown timer popped up on the channel and the familiar Jane the Lofi Girl character temporarily disappeared. The countdown eventually introduced a new live stream called Synthwave from the point of view of a new Lofi Boy character.
Nissan’s ad relies heavily on subliminal marketing, creating an association between Lofi music and driving a Nissan. While it’s ultimately a long-game play, Nissan hit it out of the park reaching a new audience with this innovative effort.
Elsewhere in Marketing
The latest marketing news and strategy insights.
Snapchat is releasing its”My AI” chatbot to all users on the platform for free.
Podcasts are here to stay: according to Pew Research, nearly half of American adults regularly listen to podcasts for news and education. 
Meta is now allowing teens as young as 13 to use its virtual reality app Horizon Worlds. The app was previously only available to users over the age of 17.
LinkedIn marketing: here’s how to generate leads on LinkedIn in 2023.

 

 

Are you familiar with the differences between a Customer Engagement Platform and a Customer Data Platform? While you might already know about Customer Data Platforms and may even use them, a Customer Engagement Platform has much more to offer than just collecting and consolidating data.

In fact, a Customer Engagement Platform can have a huge impact on your marketing team’s capabilities and empower them to achieve much more. That’s why we’re excited to dive deeper into this topic and explain the unique features and benefits of a Customer Engagement Platform in this article.

So, let’s get started and explore why a Customer Engagement Platform is more than just a Customer Data Platform, and how it can revolutionize the way you engage with your customers.

To face the challenges facing businesses today, marketers must rely heavily on technology that enables them to act lean and with tremendous precision and effectiveness. However, the martech landscape never stops producing new acronyms for next-gen products and systems. This only adds to the confusion. What is CEP? Is it just a new buzzword for CDP?

Modern marketers can easily find themselves constantly seeking the ideal martech stack setup and new tools—instead of focusing on customers and their experiences with your brand. You may assume that there is nothing new to the appearance of catchy new acronyms. This way of thinking is misleading. Martech is developing rapidly, and novel iterations of various systems exponentially empower those who keep a finger on the technology’s pulse. 

In order to keep up, marketing teams are forced to learn new, more efficient and independent ways of conducting operations—Lean Ways. And Customer Engagement Platforms are tailored just for this.

 

 

What is CDP? A Quick Reminder

 

This question was already answered in What Is A Customer Data Platform? CDP In A Nutshell part1. Here is just a quick summary.

According to CDP Institute, a Customer Data Platform is a “packaged software that creates a persistent, unified customer database that is accessible to other systems.”

“Packaged software” means that CDP is a ready-to-use, off-the-shelf software usually provided by the vendor. 

“Persistent, unified customer database” means that CDP collects data from many different sources, i.e., all the company’s touchpoints, where it is possible to acquire first-party consumer data such as sales, loyalty, customer service, social media, etc. Such datasets are called first-party data. There is also zero-party data, i.e., information provided voluntarily by customers.

 

 

Data from different sources are stored in CDP, then merged and unified into a single customer profile. 

 

 

Finally, “accessible to other systems” means that customer data is shared with any other system that needs it, such as those used by sales, marketing, and commerce. 

In other words, CDP, at its core, gathers data from multiple sources, cleans it, and constructs a unified customer profile, —a single source of truth, accessible to all of a company’s departments. 

And that’s really all it takes to call a system a Customer Data Platform. But, currently, it is rare that a CDP company offers only this.

CDP can be merged with AI-driven, advanced analytic tools. Such a system is called CIP—Customer Intelligence Platform. We also explained this type of software in detail in What Is A Customer Data Platform? CDP In A Nutshell part1.  

So, can this type of “evolved CDP” with some add-ons be called a Customer Engagement Platform?

No. It takes much more than this.

 

What Is a Real Customer Engagement Platform?

 

Many CDPs started as different types of software. Some stem from legacy CRM systems designed mainly for data management, but have evolved into platforms that are cloud-based, analytics-driven, and compatible with other apps.

Others have CDPs at their core. As we mentioned earlier, CDPs collect data from multiple sources in real-time, unify the data into customer profiles, and then send it to marketing, sales, customer support, and analytics tools.

Some modern CRMs and CDPs fulfill some CEP functions but activate data by sending it to downstream tools. A real Customer Engagement Platform activates data within the system itself.

 

 

This is exactly how we’ve been developing the SALESmanago system for years. Our Customer Engagement Platform stems from CDP, and was later enriched with Marketing Automation. Since then, we have built our system as comprehensive software, able to activate data within itself.

All the system’s layers play a vital role in making marketing teams trusted revenue partners to their CEOs. 

The CDP layer gathers and orchestrates data from multiple sources.The Hyper-personalized execution layer actions data in an optimized, lean, and effective way.The marketing development layer enables the perfection of marketing processes with the support of both AI-based and human guidance.

 

Together, these layers enable marketing teams to:

Get intimate knowledge about their customers and create a meaningful bond;Deliver the best offer in the optimal time via the best channel; andConstantly develop and refine the process, thereby strengthening customer engagement and increasing CLV as well as Average Order Value.

 

 We formulated these effects as three principles:

Customer IntimacyPrecision ExecutionGrowth Intelligence.

 

Customer Intimacy. CDP Layer

 

At the core of the SALESmanago system lies CDP, directly tied to the Customer Intimacy rule: 

Implementing self-learning solutions that leverage zero- and first-party data to know your customers better than your friends. It results in increased loyalty and authentic customer relationships.

 

 

This layer is a self-sustaining ecosystem that gathers, manages, and makes data actionable in real-time across all execution channels. It feeds with:

zero-party data shared intentionally by the customers; first-party data, namely transactional and behavioral data which customers allow you to gather automatically; andthird party data, which is any data you might bring from external sources. 

 

Customer data is gathered within a 360 Customer View equipped with the next generation of AI Predictions around Products, Churn, Lifetime, and delivery channels. SALESmanago stands out among CDPs, with a strong focus on zero-party data and next-generation tools for analyzing customer behavior on the website.

 

 

Precision Execution. Hyper-personalized Omnichannel Execution Layer

 

The second layer enables marketing teams to execute hyper-personalized omnichannel communication.It embodies the second rule, Precision Execution:

Combining hyper-personalization of the omnichannel experience with clearly predefined processes. It results in higher CR, AOV, and CLV as well as lower customer churn.

 

 

Precision Execution enables marketing teams to run campaigns and other processes on the basis of ready-made workflow templates, addressing the most important challenges and improving key e-commerce KPIs. For custom processes, SALESmanago provides a workflow engine with unlimited potential for building omnichannel processes without the need for IT department support.

As a real Customer Engagement Platform, SALESmanago’s CDP has been natively integrated with in-house built marketing tools. This makes activating customer data extremely easy. For example, you may have consistent product recommendations ready to deliver to your customer via any channel:  email, Web Push, Social Media, or even Live Chat. SALESmanago lets you do this with just a few clicks.

Eventually, all these channels lead a customer to your website. At this moment, their expectations are very high because, until now, you’ve been extremely accurate with your hyper-personalized offer. To live up to these expectations, you can turn the ordinary website’s front into a hyper-personalized, high-conversion touch point. You can equip the site with personalized banners and AI-driven product recommendations to achieve the best possible product relevance adapted to the Customer Profile stored in our CDP. Further steps to increase conversion would be to deploy Social Proof and Live Chat.  

Last but definitely not least, our Personal Shopping Inbox is the only widget on the market enabling you to run 1-to-1 communication, send special offers, or let customers create wish lists. Personal Shopping Inbox is also an invaluable source of zero-party data.

 

 

Growth Intelligence. Marketing Development Layer

 

The third and final layer embodies the rule we call Growth Intelligence:

Merging human and AI-based guidance to maximize the impact of your time, eCommerce budget, and strategy without dependency on IT. It enables full control of your revenue outcomes.

 

 

Growth intelligence is not only about smart advice for marketers. It’s the philosophy our platform has been built around, making marketers independent, time efficient, and fully empowered.

Our human and AI-based guidance will help you maximize the impact of your time, budget, and strategy without dependency on IT. You will get real-time advice on where to allocate your time and resources. Our AI will find groups of customers you should take care of and suggest what actions should be taken. 

And you will not be alone in finding solutions. Within the platform itself, you will find a wide range of ready-to-use workflow templates addressing key marketing metrics.

The analytical part contains comprehensive information on how our platform is affecting revenue directly and indirectly, which channels perform well, and what the perfect omnichannel mix is for maximizing revenue.

 

 

Customer Engagement Platform – the definition

 

Omnia’s comprehensive definition states that real CEP is “A platform that enables an enterprise to capture and unify customer data from multiple sources and view the customer journeys holistically. A CEP interprets, as well as intelligently and proactively orchestrates, personalized and relevant content, offers, or responses regardless of channel or device. A CEP also allows an enterprise to continuously analyze, learn, and amend how it engages to continually enhance the customer’s experience.”

According to this definition, 3 layers of the SALESmanago system make it a Customer Engagement Platform.

 

Wrapping Up

 

The difference between Customer Data Platform and Customer Engagement Platform is, in reality, as apparent as the difference between data and engagement.

With pure CDP you must elicit this engagement yourself, using a costly multitude of external tools deployed and orchestrated by the IT department, which itself is a very costly department. But first, you have to choose how to compose your martech stack, what type of functionalities to include, and which vendor you should choose for each functionality. Then you have to put in a lot of effort to make it work, and the company has to put in a lot of money to support you.

CEP activates data within the system of natively built tools, in the most advanced cases (like SALESmanago) without any dependency on IT. You don’t have to compose a martech stack by yourself and then maintain it to stay operational. The vendor takes care of this. 

The final product of CDPis a Single Customer View or 360 Customer Profile, this is where its role ends The final CEPs product is customer engagement and all the benefits that come with it. 

This guarantees that any marketing team can be powerful, pragmatic, and lean—and a trusted revenue partner to your CEO.

 

 

In recent years, the eCommerce industry has experienced significant growth, with online sales expected to exceed $7 trillion by 2025. With this growth comes the challenge of logistics, including the timely delivery of products to customers and meeting consumer demands. To address this challenge, the industry has seen the emergence of innovative logistics solutions. But…
The post The Future of eCommerce Logistics appeared first on Benchmark Email.

As a LinkedIn user, I know firsthand the struggle of engaging with your community on a regular basis. It can be tough to find the time and energy to craft thoughtful comments and messages that keep your audience engaged and invested in your content. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the task of engaging with your LinkedIn community, I have good news for you. There’s a tool that can help you streamline your engagement strategy and connect with your audience more efficiently – WiseReply. WiseReply is a Google Chrome extension that uses AI technology to create educated, human-like comments based on any post URL, saving you time and hassle. By consistently showing up in your followers’ comments section with thoughtful and relevant responses, you’ll build a strong relationship with your audience and increase your visibility in the process. So if you’re ready to take your LinkedIn engagement to the next level and save time in the process, I highly recommend giving WiseReply a try. It might just be the solution you’ve been looking for. ​ p.d. By the way, I happen to be the founder of this extension and I would really appreciate any feedback you might have on it. I used to struggle with engagement issues on LinkedIn myself, and that’s what inspired me to create this tool. As an early user, you can try it out for free, so give it a go! 🙂 submitted by /u/LuckiestToast [link] [comments]