Author: Franz Malten Buemann

  • Gain Control on Your Salesforce Org – The Smart Way to Lead Changes in Salesforce

    Last Updated on July 6, 2021 by Rakesh Gupta The Complexity Dilemma Salesforce teams are faced with daily requests from management and business teams, that often come with aggressive delivery times. This reality inevitably leads to a classic dilemma – Should they create longer processes and utilize more resources to
    The post Gain Control on Your Salesforce Org – The Smart Way to Lead Changes in Salesforce appeared first on Automation Champion.

  • Why Customer Service Should Be Part of Your B2B Marketing Strategy

    When it comes to B2B, many leaders already know that the marketing and sales relationship is key to success. The exchange of information between these teams makes it possible to get a full view of the customer and deliver connected experiences — something 69% of them expect. But there’s a third partner you may have overlooked: service. 
    While sales and marketing work together to bring customers through the funnel, the customer service team can build on that momentum by offering valuable insights and connection points to help establish the strong relationships that customers crave and businesses need for long-term value. Service engagement is critical to building a cohesive customer journey. 
    Need proof? While 76% of customers expect consistent interactions across departments, 54% say it feels like sales, service, and marketing don’t share information. For reality to mirror expectations, these functions have to work together.
    There’s a reason why we, as marketers, obsess over customer experience. More data, more insights, and shared information across marketing, sales, and service drives a more seamless experience for your customers, which strengthens your brand, increases satisfaction, and grows retention. Before I found my home in marketing, I took on several roles in customer service and sales. So I’ve experienced firsthand the success that comes from aligning these teams. It’s almost magical. 
    Here are three reasons you should incorporate the service team into your B2B marketing strategy.
    1. Customer service gathers front-line data that sales and marketing may miss.
    Today, great customer service isn’t about outdoing your competitors; it’s about competing with a customer’s last best purchasing experience — in any space. “Customers expect it to be easy to do business with a brand,” said Joy Corso, chief marketing officer at Vonage. “When the experience doesn’t meet their expectations, trust is broken. You’ve just given them a reason to question their choice.”
    Service team members can easily gauge the overall health of customer relationships through their everyday conversations. They collect valuable insights on buying pain points, product satisfaction, and perceived gaps in the customer journey. Sales reps and marketers can integrate these insights into their own efforts and avoid upselling and cross-selling missteps. 
    But the synergies don’t stop there. When service team members have access to sales and marketing data, they’re better positioned to nurture at-risk accounts and support deals in progress.
    “I’m not sure people truly appreciate the type of data you get from your customer service team. They’re a treasure trove of insights,” Corso explained. “These insights might be different from sales and marketing, but they’re equally as important to get a data-driven picture of the customer. If you can paint that picture, you can serve up solutions when you see they’re having an issue. You can serve up potential new products if you know where they want to take their business. You can triage things before they become a problem.”

    Vonage CMO Joy Corso recently appeared on the Marketing Trends podcast to talk about the role of today’s CMO, the value of integrating customer service into your B2B marketing efforts, and leveraging your martech stack.

    2. Technology makes it easy to incorporate service into your B2B marketing efforts.

    In today’s digital world, you don’t have to rely on manual processes, in-person meetings, or even video calls to keep internal teams connected. In fact, many businesses already have a CRM in place to provide a single source of truth for customer data. 
    But sales and marketing aren’t the only teams that stand to benefit from this information. When you incorporate service into your martech solutions, all three groups can share, receive, and act on information in real time. When you leave service out, you’re limiting how effective your technology stack can be. 
    “The goal used to be getting customers to stay on your website as long as possible,” Corso said. “Now, it’s not just keeping them engaged, it’s also getting them to the right spot — helping them get from point A to point B as quickly as possible with the least amount of friction, and making sure they get what they want and need. ”
    She noted, “We’re all customers, and when you have to give your information multiple times, it’s hard. There’s a beauty to it when companies get it right.”
    3. Customer experience is a team sport.
    At its core, B2B marketing is about putting your buyers at the center of every interaction — no matter who they engage with at your business. 
    Just like a rowing team goes faster when all oars are in the water, your sales, marketing, and service teams will deliver better customer experiences faster when they’re in sync on which accounts to target, how best to engage and grow those relationships over time, and what success ultimately looks like.
    “It’s a team sport,” Corso said. “You burn a lot of calories when you’re not going in the same direction. Business leaders need to make sure their teams are aligned and working together to deliver the best customer experience possible.” 
    Hear more insights from Vonage CMO Joy Corso in this episode of The Marketing Trends podcast.
    Learn more about aligning sales, marketing, and service with an account-based marketing approach with these B2B marketing resources from Salesforce.

  • Craigslist automated poster

    90% of my business comes from Craigslist and would love to know if you all have any ideas of how to have them posted automatically?
    submitted by /u/ClothedKing [link] [comments]

  • How IoT impacts Omnichannel Customer Experience?

    submitted by /u/isonxperiences [link] [comments]

  • What is a Junction Object in Salesforce?

    Salesforce provides multiple types of relationships in order for you to connect objects together in different ways. You may be familiar with the two main relationship types lookup relationships, and master-detail relationships. These allow you to create a normal parent and child relationship, which is… Read More

  • The Swiss Knife Of Marketing

    submitted by /u/Tatsiana_Isakova [link] [comments]

  • 3 Out-of-the-box Ideas For Personalizing B2C Emails

     

     

    Email marketing plays an extremely important role in the B2C sector. It helps you stay in touch with your customers, make sales efficiently and build relationships and loyalty. A few simple tricks help boost this communication and quickly tailor messages to specific audiences in a clever way. Here are 3 uncommon ideas for personalizing emails in B2C.

     

    Email marketing remains the preferred marketing channel across all market sectors. In fact, even Millennial consumers sense that once Facebook is long forgotten, emails will continue to blaze between inboxes (Litmus). Numerous studies confirm this:

     

    Email is one of the top 3 distribution channels for B2C marketers. (Kinsta)
    80% of retail professionals indicate that email marketing is their biggest driver of customer retention. (Emarketer)
    Just over 50% of consumers buy something after receiving a marketing email at least once a month. (SaleCycle)

     

    Including a customer’s name or product name/details in the title of an email yields a higher Open Rate than adding a company name or creating an aura of urgency. (SaleCycle)

     

    Email marketing vs B2C

     

    The B2C industry is pretty specific. It’s not eCommerce, where customers shop on their own from start to finish. It’s also not B2B, where the whole purchasing process is ritualized like an admission ceremony to a secret society.

     

    B2C requires a smooth and clever balance between leaving the customer space and getting involved in the buying process. Making contact too quickly can discourage the customer, and if you linger too long, you could lose them through neglect.

     

    Not only the moment of sending, but also the content of the message is very important. The most effective emails are those that are tailored to the recipients. The right automated personalization will not only make your job easier, it will also make your customers feel nurtured and cared for.

     

    What can be personalized in B2C correspondence?

     

    Using the latest technology, you can personalize most elements of an email campaign based on comprehensive Customer Data Platform (CDP) data. Emails are highly malleable. Almost all elements can be bespoke to the individual needs and preferences of the recipient. Most broadly speaking, in emails you can personalize:

     

    title,
    message text,
    submitted offers,
    call-to-action,
    sender account,
    sender footer,
    shipping time.

     

    Then there’s dynamic content, which is a completely separate category of tools that help personalize and improve each customer’s shopping experience. You can learn more about dynamic content in the article:

    Masterclass of dynamic Omnichannel excellence>>

     

    3 unconventional ideas for email personalization in B2C

     

    There are many articles describing personalizing your email subject line and name in the body. It’s time for new, out-of-the-box inspirations – especially for B2C.

     

    Idea #1 Use a loyalty program

     

    A loyalty program works great for B2C businesses. It helps to acquire, activate and loyalize customers. If you are running loyalty program activities, you can easily use it to your advantage in your email campaign as well.

     

    There are several places where you can use loyalty program elements when creating an email message.The loyalty program comes in handy early on – that is, when determining your audience. When addressing a mailing, you can use the loyalty program stage as one of the selectors. Step-by-step instructions:

     

    Create a contact group in the Customer Segmentation Center
    a. Go to the Segmentation dashboard, and then select the Customer Segmentation Center.

    b. Click +Add a new segment (if you want to create it from scratch) or Edit any of the existing segments (if you want to use the Loyalty Program to narrow the selected group).

    c. Name the segment [1] and add a short description [2]. Then click the “+” sign in the Select contacts section.

     

     

    d. Select Loyalty Program Level from the list of predefined segments.

    e. Select the program stage [1] that should define this group. If you run several programs, you can use the search box [2] to find the right one faster.

     

     

    f. Click Next and then Save. The loyalty program level has been added.

    g. In the next steps, you can add or exclude other contact groups, as well as set filters. Once you have added all the desired narrowings, save the Segment in the last step.

     

    Specify the segment when addressing your mailing
    a. Go to the Email Marketing dashboard, then select the Email list.

    b. Create a new email or select Send by selecting any of the existing emails.

    c. If you have a prepared group of recipients, you can select it by entering its name in the Select segment section.

    d. If you want to create a new group, in the place where you specify the recipient group click the “+” sign in the Select contacts section.Then follow the same procedure as for creating a recipient group in the Customer Segmentation Center.

     

     

    If email is part of the Workflow process you can also use the events and conditions associated with the loyalty program:

    a. Go to the Automation Processes dashboard, and then select the Workflows panel.

    b. Select the appropriate process and click Edit, or – if you want to create a new process – +Add New Workflow.

    c. In the place where you want to use the conditions related to the loyalty program, place the appropriate elements. You can choose from:

    Event: Contact scored points in the loyalty program

    Event: Contact changed their tier in the loyalty program

    Condition: Contact is on the tier in the loyalty program

     

     

    d. Determine which loyalty program to consider and what threshold conditions must be met.

    Alternatively, you can exclude people who will participate in the event or meet the condition by checking the NO checkbox on the item card
    e. Add the action that you want to happen afterwards (sending the message).

     

    You can also use information about the loyalty program in the body of the email. Try to start with the simple use of attributes:

     

    Number of points in a Loyalty Program: $program_name.points$ – a piece of information on the number of contact points in a given Loyalty Program; allows you to extract the number of contact points from the contact card in the SALESmanago system.

    Tier in a Loyalty Program: $program_name.tier$ – the piece of information about a tier at which the contact is located in a given Loyalty Program; allows you to take the name of a tier from the contact card in the SALESmanago system.

     

    The next step may be using conditional content to tailor the displayed rewards to the recipient’s tier in the loyalty program.To use this option, first correlate the tag system with the loyalty program, as conditional content can be added through tags, among other things. To use conditional content in Email Designer:

     

    Go to the Email marketing dashboard.
    Click the +New Email button and then select the Template with sending possibility.
    Go to Edit and select the Other tab.
    To use conditional content in the creation of an email, drag a block of Conditional content to a chosen place in the preview field.
    Then drag the widgets you are interested in into the area of a given variant. You can create up to four different variants for each conditional content block and add up to 5 different widgets to each of them.
    Specify the conditions for each widget. To do so, click the settings icon or the variant block.
    In the condition selection box, select Contact has a tag, then click the cog wheel and select the appropriate tag.
    In the box under each variant, you will see a box that says Drag and drop the widget here. In this field, compose the message you want to send to recipients at specific stages of the loyalty program from ready-made elements.

     

     

    If you have implemented a loyalty program or are looking to implement one, I highly recommend reading the other resources on this topic as well:

    [NEW FEATURE] Loyalty program for Online Store

    [Strategic Tips & Tricks] Three different Loyalty Program strategies for Acquisition & Retention of customers 

    [Case Study] Pigment: 400% higher OR for automatic emails and 240% higher CTR in the loyalty program.

     

    Idea #2 Have a calculator on your website? Use it in an email!

     

    Calculators and mechanisms for offer personalization are present on many B2C websites. They allow customers to check the terms of the selected offer. For the site owner it will be a signal that they have a potential customer on the site. One can easily deduce that if someone uses such a calculator, they are interested in the offer. This can prove especially useful in an email campaign designed to move contacts down the purchase funnel. With proper integration and connection to external events, data entered into calculators and other values assigned to them can be used by applying the following formula in the body of the email:

     

    $cst.extEvent.EVENT_TYPE.detail1$

     

    You can substitute detail1 with any detail from (1-20) and EVENT_TYPE with any event (PURCHASE, CART, VISIT, OTHER etc.).

    This allows you to show a perfectly tailored offer in the mail. Even without an eCommerce store and product feed, you can prepare a message with content dynamically suited to the interests of the recipient.

     

    Idea #3 Personalized Footer

     

    In mass mailings, it’s sometimes easy to personalize content so that it relates 1-to-1 to the recipient’s needs and interests. But what about the signature? In many B2C businesses, each customer has an account manager with whom they build a relationship. It would probably be nice if their signature also appeared in mass messages. Such an action helps to strengthen the relationship and create a better customer experience. How to add email footer personalization to mass mailings?

     

    First, when you assign a sales person to a contact, use an automation rule to add to the contact’s card a set of details that will later be used to personalize the footer. Details that are worth adding include:

     

    image (link to file on server where image is stored),
    position,
    name and surname,
    phone number,
    email address,
    office address,
    LinkedIn profile.

     

    When creating a message, prepare all the necessary details and, where individual elements are to appear, apply formulas that retrieve that data: $cst.detail$. For a picture the formula will look like this: $cst.link_to_graphics$.

     

    Personalization of email marketing in B2C: a brief wrap-up

     

    Email marketing in itself is a great tool for developing customer relationships in B2C. Modern software offers great opportunities to personalize messages, so even with mass mailings customers receive content that interests them. This makes them more likely to consider a purchase and move down the purchase funnel more efficiently. Knowing a few clever tricks in addition helps you stand out even more from your competitors, and as you know, it’s these details that often determine whether a person will buy from you or move on to your rivals.

     

    Ask your Customer Success Manager how else you can personalize emails to implement a long-term strategy of customer loyalty in B2C.

  • What is Brand Salience? [+How Do You Measure It?]

    While branding can feel like a vague concept, it’s one of the most important elements of a marketing strategy.
    Did you know that presenting a brand consistently across all platforms can increase revenue by up to 23%?
    Plus, consistently presented brands are 3.5 times more likely to have excellent brand visibility than those with inconsistent branding.

    In fact, 82% of investors say name recognition is an important factor guiding them in their investment decisions.
    So, what does all this mean? Well, consistent branding leads to increased brand awareness which can then help gain investors and drive revenue to your business. Needless to say, branding is important for your business to succeed.
    In this post, let’s review what brand salience is, how you can increase your brand visibility, and how to measure it.
    If you have high brand salience, then you have a strong brand presence that consumers recognize and think about when they need a product. If you have low brand salience, then consumers might not know your brand exists and therefore won’t think of your brand when they need to make a purchase.
    Essentially, brand salience is a similar metric as brand awareness except it’s focused on measuring awareness during the actual purchasing decision instead of overall brand visibility.
    For example, when someone wants to get a cup of coffee and is driving around, what’s the first brand they think of? Probably Starbucks. When they want to buy tissues, they think of Kleenex. When they want to search for something online, they Google it.
    All of these brands have transcended the perception of being a random company, and are now household names in their own right. Most people think of these brands and know of them whether they’ve been there or used those products before.
    These brands have high brand salience. To have high brand salience, your customers need to think about your brand as the first solution to their wants or needs when they have to make a purchasing decision.
    The concept of brand salience is actually psychological in nature. According to research done by Jenni Romaniuk and Byron Sharp, brand salience is “a brand’s propensity to be noticed or come to mind in buying situations.”
    This means that you have to capture people’s attention and be memorable enough for consumers to recall your brand when they’re purchasing something.
    For example, when a consumer has a choice of brands to purchase from, they’ll rely both on their memory and attention salience. This means they’ll recall brands they know and then see what captures their attention.
    This process is actually scientific. People who have studied brand salience have studied the human brain — how do people recall information and how does a brand associate positive memory structure with their product?
    To increase your brand salience, some of your marketing campaigns probably won’t even focus on persuading consumers to buy your product. The goal of many branding campaigns is to constantly reinforce positive associations with your brand. Familiarity is important. Constant marketing messages from a brand ensure that the brand is top-of-mind when a consumer is making a purchasing decision.
    Brands create high brand salience by using distinctive brand assets that capture attention and create positive memories for their audience. This means your marketing assets promote positive storytelling and create a meaning associated with your brand. When you promote your values, you’re differentiating your brand from the competition and increasing brand salience.
    To create campaigns that will improve brand salience, think about the emotional impact of your assets. Your campaigns should be meaningful, authentic, and portray your values as a company.
    All of this will help customers create a positive association with your brand and remember your brand when it comes time to make a purchase.
    For example, let’s say I want to buy some gum. When I think about gum, one of the first things I think of are the commercials for Extra. I’ve never forgotten those commercials because they were emotional and created a positive experience for me.
    Now, when I think about gum, I usually buy Extra even though that brand has never been my favorite gum company (I used to buy Orbit). But since those commercials, I’ve leaned toward Extra because of the positive association and it’s one of the first brands I recall because of those commercials.
    Ultimately, brand salience is a combination of brand awareness, familiarity, relevance, frequent communication, and emotional connections between brand and consumer.
    Now, you might be thinking, “This all sounds great, but how can I measure this and prove its effectiveness to my managers?”
    Let’s dive into that below.
    How to Measure Brand Salience
    Brand salience is rather conceptual in nature. Unfortunately, it’s not a mathematical metric that is easily measured. So, what do brands do?
    Well, one of the only ways to measure brand salience is through surveys and focus groups. It’s important to ask your customers when they think of you, what they associate with your brand, and if they recall your company when making a purchasing decision.
    You can ask customers whether they recall or notice your brand relative to competitors. Then, ask whether your brand is just thought of or sought after to determine how favorably your brand is judged.
    Your survey can include descriptive assets to track your brand’s distinctive assets. For instance, what tone of voice, logo, color, or slogan comes to mind when users think of soda. They might say red, because they’ve associated Coca-Cola branding with soda in general.
    To measure this, you can present survey respondents with a randomized list of cues and attributes by asking them which brands they associate with each statement. It could be questions like “when I want to eat something quick and healthy” or “I know I will not overpay there.”
    Using a survey or focus group will help you determine how high your brand salience is compared to competitors.
    Now, let’s look at the brand salience model that you can use to strategize your brand positioning.
    Brand Salience Model
    In his book, Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity, Kevin Keller developed a model for brand salience that has become popular in digital marketing.
    In the graphic below, Keller creates a pyramid of building blocks to pay attention to when you’re trying to increase your brand salience.

    Image Source
    This model focuses on increasing deep, broad brand awareness by creating an identity that customers remember. At the foundation of the pyramid is salience, which you can increase by defining your brand in detail, frequently communicating with your audience, and using creative assets to tell a story.
    Then, you create meaning and authenticity to differentiate your brand from the competition. And then, you use frequent messages to create positive, accessible reactions in your customers. And then you create loyalty by building a relationship and emotional connection with your audience.
    With this model, you can increase brand salience, drive revenue, and even attract investors. Although this isn’t the easiest metric to track, the science proves that focusing on branding will help your company become a household name for your customers.

  • 5 Successful Email Marketing Strategies for Black-Owned Businesses [+ Examples]

    Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a new blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of Black business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success.
    We live in a digital era, and people are still checking their emails daily, so strong email marketing strategies are essential, especially for Black-owned businesses.
    When thinking about creating the best email marketing strategies, make sure you are authentic and tell your community your story.
    Do a brain dump of your ideas if you need to find purpose and discover the expected outcome for each marketing strategy you are working to create.

    The Black community supports you best when you’re honest, so they can empathize with you.

    “The most effective email marketing campaigns we’ve launched have been those that are authentic, tell our story, and bring our audience along for the ride. In the early days before we launched our company, all we had was our story to draw people into our funnel,” THE MOST founder and CEO Dawn Myers told HubSpot.
    Myers adds, “Be vulnerable. Show the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. Show that you identify with their pain points and how much you’ve sacrificed to be able to serve them. This tactic builds deep credibility and trust.”
    Below, you can find five email strategies that have worked for Black business owners today.

    Additionally, for additional email marketing resources, check out these blogs on how to create an outstanding marketing plan and how to craft successful email marketing plans, with downloadable templates included.

    Successful Email Marketing Strategies for Black-Owned Businesses
    1. Find out what else your audience cares about in correlation with your mission.
    If someone subscribes to your email list, it’s safe to say they have already heard of your product or find it interesting, so it’s important to dig deeper beyond that.
    Ariel Butler, founder and CEO of hair and skin products company Shea Adé, learned that people mainly care about when the company is emailing about sales when it comes to product-based businesses. It can also get daunting if emails are about the same products consumers have already heard about.
    “I’d recommend brands find other topics to email their audience about (blog posts, free ebooks, etc.),” she said. “Everything outside of that should be emails about sales or new product releases as opposed to the emails that look like ‘Hey, don’t forget to buy this full-priced item that I’ve been bugging you about 4X a week!’”
    One strategy that works for Butler is sending daily affirmations to her customers. She started trying out this simple email tactic since her brand’s mission is all about not only healing hair but healing beyond the scalp.

    “I want my customers to wake up every day and feel good about how they look,” Butler said. “Since I started sending out those emails, I have been completely blown away by how enjoyable daily affirmations have been for my customers. Some people have only been introduced to my brand because someone told them about our emails, and when they found out that Shea Adé is a hair company, they supported me because they resonated with my brand’s mission to heal.”
    2. Connect with your customers weekly.
    Every week, Raven Gibson, founder and CEO of Legendary Rootz, sends out a campaign that allows email subscribers to download a free personal digital wallpaper.
    She says this is her best email marketing strategy, and she coined it “Wallpaper Wednesday.” Over the years, Gibson’s audience has expressed to her that while they want to support her business, they don’t have the funds to do so. She recognized this problem and came up with a free solution to still connect with her community.

    “Typically, the design centers around celebrating Black culture or an important reminder of the day,” Gibson said. “This marketing strategy has allowed for our email list to grow, and given us the opportunity to connect with our community.”

    Gibson runs a similar campaign on Tuesdays where she connects with her followers by highlighting their love for natural hair. She sees this as a way to share community and emphasize the importance of Black hair culture. Gibson also uses these emails to share exclusive deals and product restocks specifically for email subscribers.
    These weekly email marketing campaigns have helped drive an excellent return on investment, Gibson said.
     “Investing in email marketing has allowed us to stretch our marketing dollars while making a meaningful connection with our community,” Gibson said.  
    3. Launch an engaging outreach campaign.
    Creating outreach campaigns can grab people’s attention while providing a more significant incentive beyond expecting folks to just read your emails.
    Alvarez Mckendall, a serial entrepreneur and digital marketing strategist, is responsible for social media and email marketing at Real Estate Bees, a technology and marketing platform for the real estate industry. One of his most successful email marketing strategies is interviewing the professionals and business owners with which he’s trying to connect.
    Mckendall said this strategy is most effective because it helps consumers understand what the business is offering and how potential customers can benefit from it based on what he learns in those interviews.
    Mckendall transformed Real Estate Bees’ previous email questionnaire into an interview-style questionnaire and adjusted email templates and subject lines to indicate his company’s desire to interview the business owner or a key member instead of completing a boring questionnaire.
    “Just like your friends and family members, business owners love to get attention and feel important,” Mckendall said. “Appealing to one’s ego is an extremely effective technique whenever you want to get their attention and start building a business relationship.”
    When Mckendall launched the outreach campaign, Real Estate Bees’ email open rate was 25-27%, and the response rate was about 1%.
    “I was constantly thinking about how we could improve it,” he said.
    Based on this campaign, Real Estate Bees’ email open rate has improved to 42%, and the response rate increased by 3%. It’s essential to make your campaigns engaging by including hyperlinks, photos, videos, and whatever else makes sense for your brand.
    4. Make allies with other businesses by doing press partnerships.
    Networking and building partnerships can be handy for email marketing strategies, too. Francis Perdue, CEO of public relations firm Perdue Inc., suggests Black business owners team up to expand their following by promoting each other.
    The free promotion exposes different audiences to new products and services, and it also helps build community by connecting various consumers.
    “No money is exchanged, yet it does wonders for your businesses,” Perdue said. “Share each other’s audiences to support one another. Creating an e-blast for an event or cause for someone in exchange for the same will grow your reach and show that you are committed to the community while promoting unity.”
    If you don’t know where to start, pick up your phone and see what emails you have in your contact list already. When Perdue launched her firm over a decade ago, she said she didn’t know many people in the industry, but she had a strong community of friends, old colleagues, and former classmates.
    She did an e-blast to promote her new business, and right off the back, she got 200 subscribers. More than 2,500 people are subscribed to Perdue Inc.’s email list, all of which came from Perdue’s organic outreach via her network.
    “People want to support you; you’d be surprised,” she said. “Get out and network. I own a restaurant, so I know the importance of repeat customers.”

    5. Use tools, applications, and other digital resources.
    Building email marketing strategies can be tedious and time-consuming, especially if you’re
    releasing emails weekly. It’s okay to build out your campaigns yourself, but if you’re looking for something new or different, here are some tools, applications, and resources that Black business owners use to better connect with their audiences:

    “This may sound crazy, but I believe TikTok is an amazing way to drive customers to your brand and your email list.” — Butler.
    “Switching to Klaviyo for all email correspondence helped with increasing our abandoned cart click rate from 4% to 7%. I am so happy that I took the time to switch over from Shopify and set it up.” — Gibson.
    “We have been using the BuzzStream tool to send out emails and monitor all the analytics and stats.” — Mckendall.
     “I love Adobe XD. It’s a prototyping application; however, I use it to craft all of our email marketing collateral. My favorite feature is the ability to duplicate and switch up the content in a split second. After creating specific templates for Wallpaper Wednesday or an exclusive email-only sale, I can reuse them again with just the click of a few buttons. I’ve found that using these templates allows me to streamline the process immensely.” — Gibson.
    “Some email marketing apps range from $0 to $100 a month. The good news is that usually, under 200 contacts are free. Use GoDaddy when you start your website to get coupons for marketing from their partners to cut costs as well.” — Perdue.
    “I love the website Really Good Emails. It is a gold mine for all things email. The site is very well-organized, and you can find just about any topic within the site. It’s almost like the Pinterest of email marketing.” — Gibson.

  • What is Call Routing in a Contact Center?

    Contact centers help customers get the information they need from a business while gathering valuable consumer insights through outbound and inbound communication. However, a contact center can’t function properly without effective, customizable call routing.
    What is call routing?
    Call routing ensures customers can access the information they need. The routing process directs incoming calls to specific people or departments within a contact center. Call routing isn’t new – the first manual switchboard of the late 1870s used the same concept to direct telephone traffic. This first instance of call routing in New Haven, Connecticut, allowed 21 customers to be directed with the help of a manual switchboard operator.
    Call centers and call routing evolved more in the mid 1900s, with the first Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) appearing after the hacking of an Air Traffic Control System in England. The history of call centers and call routing included AT&T’s establishment of toll-free numbers in the mid-1960s, and the rollout of IVR (Interactive Voice Response) technology in call centers in the late-1970s.
    Most call routing these days is more sophisticated, and is often integrated with Computer Telephone Integrated systems (CTI) or Voice Over Internet Protocols (VOIP), both of which are types of contact center technology that keeps things running smoothly. Call routing is essential for managing high call volumes and ensuring customer satisfaction.
    Types of contact center call routing.
    Different types of call routing are classified by who the call will be directed to and how each call is queued.
    Time-based and location-based.
    This is one of the most common methods of call routing. Using the caller’s time zone and global location, you can connect them with an appropriate support agent in their region. With this approach, businesses can support their customers worldwide while contact centers maintain their set business hours.

    DID YOU KNOW?
    Fonolo’s Smart Routing allows contact centers to limit calls from certain countries, states or provinces.

    Skills-based.
    Skill-based – or department-based – call routing directs customer calls to agents based on their skills and knowledge. For example, an IVR system might direct a caller to a department that deals with complaints or product returns. It could also direct a caller to a technology support specialist. A caller might need to be routed to a representative at the managerial level. By quickly getting a caller to the correct representative with the right skills, you can reduce hold time and decrease abandonment rates by up to 60%.
    Caller ID.
    Caller ID call routing directs customers based on their call history. For example, if the customer has called before about a particular product, the system might direct them to a representative they have spoken to before. This can be very reassuring for the customer, as it prevents them from having to share their details from scratch.
    Artificial Intelligence (AI).
    Machine learning via AI can use biometrics to get customers what they need. Voice biometrics, for example, can authenticate a customer’s identity without requiring them to undergo a long identification process (forms, questionnaires, etc.).
    Interactive Voice Response (IVR).
    IVRs are one of the most common fixtures in a contact center. This tool can double as a form of self-service so customers can find information without needing to speak to an agent. IVRs can also direct a customer call based on how the customer voices their needs.
    8 Tips for Creating a Great Visual IVR
    Methods of routing calls in the contact center.
    There are a few methods, or policies, of call routing that your contact center might use:

    Simultaneous: Great for speed, this call routing method gives all team members the option to take a call, since all of their phones will ring at the same time.

    Weighted: An ideal method for call centers that have team members of varying skills, the weighted method allows a ratio of calls to be routed to each agent. For example, the most experienced or high-performing agent could receive 80% of calls, while less experienced agents might receive the remaining 20%.

    Uniform: This routing method directs each incoming call to the agent who has been available the longest. For example, an agent that hasn’t had a call for 1 hour will receive the next call before an agent that hasn’t had a call for half an hour.

    Regular: This method directs calls to agents in chronological order. Agent 1 will get the first call, Agent 2 will get the second, and Agent 3 will get the next call if Agent 1 or 2 aren’t available.

    Round-Robin: This method ensures all calls are distributed equally among your team members, one at a time.

    Benefits of call routing.
    Call routing offers countless benefits to both contact centers and customers.
    With smart call routing, a contact center can:

    Optimize resources and use their call agents as efficiently as possible.
    Improve customer satisfaction through skill-based routing, by getting them relevant and timely support.
    Increase First Call Resolution (FCR), reduce average handling time and decrease customer wait times.
    Increase agent availability by routing calls to different time zones.
    The post Blog first appeared on Fonolo.