Welcome back to our Reinventing Digital Marketing - CMO Perspectives blog. This week we feature some fascinating articles to keep both new and seasoned marketing professionals up-to-date. Among the stand-out pieces, Sujan Patel for Forbes.com looks at how Chatbots are becoming an increasingly powerful marketing tool; while AI-driven technology takes front-and-center in a Forrester report, outlined in Barry Levine's Martechtoday piece; and Tamar Weinberg for Marketingland highlights 6 UX principles marketers can't afford to overlook. There is much more to follow, including our featured Tweet Pick from @johnhall which helps you plan your 2017 calendar by selecting the leading Marketing Conferences this year as compiled by Forbes.
6 Effective Uses for Chatbots in Marketing [Forbes.com]
What do you think when you think about Chatbots, asks Sujan Patel. "If you're like many others, it's possible that you think of them as nothing more than that annoying little window that pops up when you're visiting a website. You know what I'm talking about - the one that claims to be able to answer your questions." He goes on to say that although you may have had both positive and negative experiences with Chatbots, a serious business cannot afford to ignore them. This very informative piece breaks down what Chatbots are and why you need them.
According to Barry Levine, a report released late last year pointed to personal data lockers, commonplace augmented reality, and much smarter location analytics as key emerging technologies for the coming 5 years. In this piece, which you will probably be able to relate to, even if you don't necessarily agree with it, Levine discusses Forrester's statement that marketers need to say goodbye to campaigns and hello to AI-driven conversations with their customers. Certainly makes for riveting reading.
CMO, CIO embrace social media, IoT to win customers [CIO.com]
Clint Boulton you are adding you to our growing list of social CX heroes. We just LOVED this piece. Take a breath, pause... now repeat after us..., "CMO, CIO embrace social media, IOT to win customers." Boulton creates a case-study of the company Clorox, who have risen to the social CX challenge, and tells how they have created a ninja team of sales, product and IT leaders to experiment with novel approaches to marketing its products. This "Sense and Response" team, consisting of sales, marketing and IT leaders, leverages social media, software from the world's leading marketing technology vendors and the internet of things (IoT) to help Clorox burrow more deeply into consumers' consciousness. Now that's nice, and we look forward to seeing more and more stories like this over the coming year.
6 UX principles marketers can't afford to overlook [Marketingland.com]
Notebooks out, this is one piece you are going to want to take notes from. Tamar Weinberg outlines six key UX principles that marketers shouldn't ignore and explains how they can improve your conversion rate, SEO and user engagement. Very useful and practical advice like; cutting out those terrifying forms, and making sure your site loads in under 2 seconds. How many of these principles do you currently adhere to and which ones will you now add?
7 For 2017: Predictions about The Future Of Branding [CMO.com]
Brand experience experts... that's the title author of this piece, Margaret Molloy, gives when pondering what's top of mind for 2017. Isn't that a fantastic title for what CMO's actually do? Molloy highlights just 7 predictions for the future of branding for 2017 pointing out that, "One overarching theme that traverses all these predictions is that the quest to simplify both customer and employee experiences will be paramount for CMOs in 2017." We cannot wait.
We hope you enjoyed this week's CMO Perspectives, be sure to respond in the comments or tweet us @NICE_CX or follow us on LinkedIn.