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The Best Way to Keep Up With Marketing Technology and Trends

Authors: Mitch Causey Mitch Causey
Posted Under: Digital Marketing
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The Best Way to Keep Up With Marketing Technology & Trends
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badge-guest-post-FLATTERSince the days of yore, digital marketing strategy has been designed for the same purpose: sell more stuff.

Marketing tactics, on the other hand, are a different kind of animal. This beast is in a constant state of flux, whether you’re heads-down in social, search, or any ad space with more than a smidgen of competition.

As a result, the future of marketing is being shaped by those who can keep up, continue to learn what has changed, and use that knowledge to their advantage.

At Lesson.ly, we are extremely proud to be a part of that learning process for many companies, including the three I would like to talk about today: DataSift, iGoDigital, and Convince & Convert.

Each of these fast-growing companies has a unique education-based headache, and we have become the Tylenol to provide assistance.

DataSift

Who is Datasift?

DataSift’s platform enables companies to easily aggregate, filter, and extract information from the billions of social-media conversations that happen across the world. With data from top social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and WordPress, DataSift powers hundreds of applications and analyses across a wide variety of industries.

The Problem

Due to the constant shifting sands of marketing, DataSift’s product is constantly evolving. This reality, combined with DataSift’s incredible growth as a global company, have made it difficult for everyone to stay on the same page about DataSift’s most current product offerings and services.

Before Lesson.ly, there was no formal process to keep the essential, client-facing teams up-to-speed on product innovations, which often include the ins and outs of new data sources.

Datasift’s geographic diversity added to this pain, making it impractical to schedule real-time training across times zones.

It quickly became critical for DataSift to find a way to scale training efforts while ensuring they could continue to measure how well new material was being retained after it was shared.

The Solution

Now, with Lesson.ly, the DataSift product marketing team has adopted a process where they quickly create new lessons on product updates, share them with the team across the globe, and track the completion and performance of that training. 

Meanwhile, the sales and services teams can access training on a schedule that works for them in their time zone, allowing them to review content whenever they need and on whatever device they are most comfortable with.

iGoDigital

Who is iGoDigital?

Have you ever been on a major retailer’s website and seen that section that says “if you like this product, you might like these?” More than likely, you’re actually looking at iGoDigital’s recommendation software, one of their many talents.

After their acquisition by ExactTarget in October of 2012, almost immediately followed by ExactTarget’s acquisition by SalesForce in June of 2013, iGoDigital now makes up the marketing cloud giant’s “Predictive Intelligence” department. If you are an e-retailer and are looking for a way to get on the cutting edge (or at least catch up to where the big dogs have been for years), iGoDigital should be on your vendors wishlist.

The Problem

As marketers using predictive intelligence technology, such as dynamic content and product listings based on previous site engagement, continue to push for higher and better boundaries, the iGoDigital team’s products must constantly leap ahead of their competition.

While it’s easy for the product team to stay abreast of these changes because it is part of their day-to-day activities, there was often a delay in communication to the sales team. Without keeping the sales team in the loop well, the perception of iGoDigital in the mind of prospects could be something less-than-true.

iGoDigital needed a way to bridge the gap between product and business development in order to convey their innovations as quickly as they came.

The Solution

Now, with Lesson.ly, the iGoDigital product team can create the messaging their salespeople need right from the horse’s mouth. Their salespeople can then consume the information in the office, on a plane, or in between sessions at a tradeshow. Best of all, this activity can be tracked so managers have insight into who knows their stuff and who is falling behind.

Being part of a large organization like SalesForce requires organization and efficiency. With Lesson.ly, iGoDigital can enjoy both of those, while being able to track and report on improvements.

Convince & Convert

Who is Convince & Convert?

Hopefully, you already know this. Moving on…

The Problem

The Convince & Convert team is known for helping marketers stay on top of the ever-changing marketing landscape. Most of us interact with Convince & Convert through blog posts and resources.

Sometimes, though, the team gets requests to help train employees of external agencies.

These agencies are often busy keeping clients happy, so they have their heads down, working to make their clients successful (I know I’ve been there), leaving very little time to research new trends on their own.

Because of this, a lot of marketing agencies look to Convince and Convert to help gain insights into the current market place. Outside of the blog, though, Jay and the team didn’t have a great way to deliver agency-exclusive training materials.

The Solution

Now, using Lesson.ly, Jay can deliver consistent messaging to all the agencies that are interested in Convince & Convert’s services.

Once they are signed up, Jay can effectively see, at a glance, which agencies are understanding the material and retaining it. More importantly, the agencies can stay aware of recent trends and tools recommended by Jay regardless of what time of day it is and regardless of what device they most like to consume training content.

Consistent Learning is Key

President John F. Kennedy once said that “leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” In that same vein, it is clear that the current and future winners in marketing are the ones who understand they need to learn more and seek out that education.

We believe in making autonomous learning tools accessible to every company in marketing, no matter their budget, IT resources, or expertise in training because we’re all in this mayhem together.

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