MARKETING HORIZONS

Learn about the exciting job role of product management in tech markets from our guest, Laura Marino, Chief Product Officer at TrueAccord. While tech product managers have little direct authority, they hold great responsibility to represent the needs of the customer and influence others in the firm—engineering, marketing, finance—to deliver products to market at a profit. The future is bright for these professionals, as Product-Led Growth becomes a strategic imperative. Tune in especially as Laura names four characteristics of a successful product.

Technology continues to disrupt, enable and challenge the world of marketing. Join Scott Brinker, founder of the influential blog Chief Martech, as we discuss the future of marketing technology. When—if ever—will its growth plateau? How can companies prepare for the changes to come? Do you have to be a technologist to be a successful marketer today? Scott’s answers will surprise you.

Leaner staffs, fewer journalists in the newsrooms, and a growing suspicion regarding the integrity of earned media have placed the PR profession in potential peril. But today’s guest, Bridgette Borst Ombres, remains optimistic about media relations. Some things have not changed in the profession, she says, including the ongoing challenge of attribution and measurement. But join us, as we explore what has changed in media relations including AI, the rise of live audio, niche publications, and paywall journalism.

Leads up to agencies: Your business model needs an update. The needs of the workforce have changed—resulting in hundreds of vacant positions. The “pyramid” staffing structure itself is passe. Our guest Scott Gillum founded a new type of agency, for B2B markets, where employees are empowered to schedule their own workdays and trusted to produce their work “on demand.” He sees an agency like a professional sports team, where free agents sign up to deliver on specific client expectations. The result? Faster, lower-cost marketing results, enviable 86% client retention rates, and 100% employee satisfaction ratings on Glassdoor. Join us to learn the philosophy behind this new model, which could be a blueprint for the agency of the future.

Phone reps are no longer the front line of customer service. Customers now reach out to their suppliers first through digital channels. In turn, companies worldwide view their call centers not only as a cost center but also a revenue opportunity. AI across the customer lifecycle is driving innovation in prediction, conversation and analytics, backed by a combination of cognitive engines and human assistance.

The tools needed to manage your customer data have changed dramatically since the days of “database marketing” in the 1980s. The latest iteration is a CDP, or customer data platform, the subject of our stimulating discussion with David Raab, a leading expert and founder of the CDP Institute. He explains how the tech landscape has become quite complex and continues to morph. The number of systems continues to grow, fed by a proliferation of channels, declining development costs, and easily available funding. Listen in to understand the customer data landscape, why it’s critical to marketing success, and where the technology is going in the future.

The role of the PR professional is changing fast. No longer limited to media relations or crisis management, these days PR people have evolved into larger and more strategic roles as “communicators,” who handle multi-channel messaging to a variety of important audiences, or “publics.” Our guest, Bonnie Harris, explains what’s driving this change, and where it’s likely to go next.

Bot-generated fraud on digital advertising will waste $42 billion by 2022, according to Jupiter Research. A shocking sum. Our guest, Dr. Augustine Fou, explains why and how ad fraud is perpetrated, and what can be done about it. Listen in to learn how we marketers must change our thinking about ad metrics, and update our media buying strategies altogether.

T he marketing world has embraced loyalty programs ever since the launch of the American Airlines Advantage program in 1981. But these transactional rewards programs are headed for the trash heap, says our guest Ajay Row, a longtime authority on retention and loyalty, based in Mumbai. Join us to learn the strategy behind loyalty marketing programs and the strategy that is likely to replace them. The key lies in figuring out who’s valuable to you, what’s valuable to them, and how you can deliver and extract more value in the relationship.

Why do walled gardens exist in the first place? The answer is quite simple, because they can. When it comes to advertising, giant firms like Facebook and LinkedIn hold all their own cards. And with the demise of 3rd party data and cookies, the amount of data they have on users who readily allow access to personal information is unprecedented. But we are learning that this may spell bad news in the future for us marketers. Listen in to this episode with Heather Blank on how Walled Gardens will impact the future of advertising.