In the Media

How Small Businesses Can Nail Social Marketing

Street Fight

Jason Richelson and his partner, Amy Bennett, lost thousands of dollars in sales after the server-based cash-register system crashed at Green Grape, their Fort Greene, Brooklyn-based business, in 2008. That disaster at the wine shop and gourmet food stores soon inspired Mr. Richelson to launch ShopKeep, a cloud-based point-of-sale system for high-volume retailers.

Fast-forward to today. The 180-employee firm has raised $37.2 million in venture capital from investors including Tom Glocer, a former CEO of Thomson Reuters. To max out the company’s valuation, it brought in Norm Merritt, former chief executive of iQor, a $550 million business-process outsourcing firm, as CEO and president eight months ago.

“They hired me to help them scale the business and get it to the next level,” said Mr. Merritt. That “next level,” they hope, is a lucrative exit, though Mr. Merritt said exactly what form it will take is to be determined. As Mr. Richelson, now chief strategy officer, told Tech Crunch last year, “There are no billion-dollar software-as-a-service businesses that have been born in New York City. That’s our goal.”

ShopKeep isn’t alone in making carefully calculated strategic hires and other moves with the hope of winning a billion-dollar valuation. More firms are doing so, thanks to inspiration from IPOs like OnDeck’s in December.

RAKING IT IN

New York’s largest venture-backed tech exits, 2012-2014

Source: CB Insights¹ IPO valuations used are as of the opening of trading.

OnDeck raised about $200 million and put the firm’s value at about $1.3 billion in the largest venture-backed tech exit ever in the city, according to CB Insights, which tracks privately held companies.

Meanwhile, there has been plenty of speculation about an IPO for database firm MongoDB, valued at about $1.2 billion, and online marketplace Etsy, based in Brooklyn, which could raise as much as $300 million in an IPO.

Yext, which allows businesses to manage their digital presence, had a $50 million round of fundraising in June and then hired a CFO in October who had guided both Pandora and Salesforce through their IPOs.

Outbrain, one of Crain’s Best Places to Work last year, is reportedly considering an IPO to raise $100 million, which would put its worth at more than $1 billion. One reason for these high valuations is that startups are waiting longer to exit than they have in the past and are using the time to scale up and raise lots of cash in the private markets.

Last year was a big one for M&A deals, too, with 184 venture-backed tech companies in New York City acquired, according to PrivCo, which provides data and financial research on privately held companies. That number was second only to Silicon Valley, which had about 280, according to PrivCo CEO Sam Hamadeh. In the recent past, he said, a good year for acquisitions in New York City meant 75 to 100.

“There is a lot of money in the system right now,” said Nick Beim, a partner at venture-capital firm Venrock. “It’s a great time to raise money in the private markets, and we are witnessing the rise of some of the fastest-growing companies we’ve ever seen.”

To position themselves for a dazzling exit, companies have changed their later-stage funding strategies to take advantage of the availability of investment capital. Some are turning to sources other than venture capital for that funding.

“A lot of these later rounds, which are so large, are being done by financial institutions like JPMorgan and Goldman, hedge funds and larger corporate entities,” said Jalak Jobanputra, founder and managing partner of FuturePerfect Ventures, an early-stage venture fund in Manhattan.

Building awareness

As they wait longer to exit, companies are putting their growth on steroids to maximize their value. “We’re pushing as fast and as hard as we can, because the greater the angle of your curve, the more valuable you are,” said Dane Atkinson, a co-founder and CEO of SumAll, a startup that gives customers, mostly businesses, the information about them collected online. SumAll has raised about $15 million and has had 1,000% growth year-over-year but is not profitable.

The 44-employee company, launched in 2011, is based in Manhattan’s financial district. About 340,000 businesses and 20,000 individuals currently use its tools.

An exit for SumAll is “years away,” said Mr. Atkinson, but an IPO, rather than an acquisition, is most likely. “We have upwards of a million active individuals using us, which means we’ve built a lot of brand awareness, so whenever we do a filing, we’re not just saying that 300 customers use us, it’s a million,” he said. To hit its goal, SumAll has hired a business-development executive who came from American Express and has experience building corporate partnerships.

ShopKeep is using a similar strategy. Mr. Merritt, the CEO, said the company is “on a tear now, growing rapidly, about 10% a month. We are getting as many merchants on board as we can and building our network, which creates a lot of value for potential investors.” The company is not profitable “by choice,” said Mr. Merritt, instead investing revenue in marketing to rapidly acquire customers.

Proving they have recurring revenue is critical for companies that want to hit it big. Chelsea-based Olapic—a visual-marketing firm that enables brands to find and use customer-generated images of their products—is focusing on building a strong financial base for a potential IPO. CEO and co-founder Pau Sabria said Olapic’s revenue is highly predictable and scalable.

“For an IPO, you have to have $100 million in revenue, and we are pretty much on track to do that in four years,” Mr. Sabria said. Olapic launched in April 2011 and now has 97 employees. Mr. Sabria would not disclose revenue but said the company has raised $6 million and isn’t yet profitable.

Many companies are also investing heavily in raising their profile in the current climate. Betterment, an automated investing service, has raised $45 million since launching in 2010, and its assets under management have grown almost 400% every year. The firm, headquartered on West 23rd Street in Manhattan, has 80 employees and manages about $1.2 billion in assets for 60,000 customers, but declined to disclose revenue or profitability.

When asked about exit plans, founder and CEO Jon Stein said he is “in it for the long haul,” but his company is also growing rapidly and doing more marketing than ever—outdoor advertising, television, National Public Radio, online and content marketing—to raise its visibility.

Hiring top talent

In angling for later, bigger exits, these organizations are also going into overdrive to attract top-notch executives and engineers. Betterment is filling out its leadership team with “growth executives” hired in the past year, said Mr. Stein. And many firms funnel their early investment capital into attracting and retaining the high-quality technical talent that raises a firm’s profile. “Engineers here can command almost the same kind of salaries they can in Silicon Valley, and it’s not just cash,” said PrivCo’s Mr. Hamadeh. “It’s also a bigger say in the direction of the company itself, loftier titles, a chunk of the company.”

Despite the number of startups aiming for a billion-dollar IPO, there is also a trend at the other end of the spectrum, toward startups going public earlier than expected, said Venrock’s Mr. Beim. “People have recognized the market is great for fundraising and exits right now, but they don’t know how long it will last, so in the last couple of years we have also seen tech companies go for an IPO sooner, when they are below $100 million in annual revenue.”

Misti Ushio, chief strategy officer at Harris & Harris Group, an early-stage, publicly traded venture firm in Manhattan, said there is now a “whole ecosystem of bankers, advisers and lawyers that understand how to do smaller IPOs—like $20 million or $50 million, not hundreds of millions. For those businesses, if they can access public -capital, that’s an enormous opportunity,” she said. “It gives a startup access to a huge market they wouldn’t have as a private company.”

To stave off an early acquisition or IPO and get a firm to $1 billion, some investors are pumping more investment capital into founders’ pockets. “Now I would say at least 20% of the B round goes to the founders so they don’t take the $12 million offer that comes around next week,” said SumAll’s Mr. Atkinson, who has built almost a dozen technology companies. “VCs often have a higher risk tolerance than we do, and they are looking for the best maximization.”

This month’s report focuses on the big announcements that came with the new year, focusing on increased security, new tablets, preparing for the future and innovation in software. To kick off the new year, we added three new players: Panasonic, PayPad, and UBA. We also updated ten new players: Anywhere Commerce, Bluefin’s QuickSwipe, CardFlight, Ezetap, iZettle, Ingenico, PayPal, Verifone, Wincor Nixdorf and Wirecard.

Here are the four key takeaways for this month:

1)Security Step-Ups: With many high profile data breaches in 2014, security is at the top of everyone’s mind. One key theme is the relevance of point-to-point encryption (P2PE) in a mPOS world. Even as more mPOS readers are emerging with EMV compatibility in preparation for the October 2015 EMV liability shift, new devices are being released with (P2PE) capabilities to add another layer of security.

2) Tablets Get Rough and Ready: As popular as mPOS is, it’s been reported that many merchants with mPOS don’t always use them. There are complaints that the devices are not rugged or designed for heavy use in retail environments or they have found flaws in the software. These claims haven’t fallen on deaf ears with announcements from major technology players about new, and rugged tablets.

3) Future-Proofing mPOS: What good is a durable piece of hardware if the software that powers it doesn’t accommodate the next generation of payments?

4) Software Innovations: Speaking of software, Flint Mobile has taken a decidedly different approach to mPOS that is all about software. Flint Co-Founder and CEO, Greg Goldfarb, tells PYMNTS.com how and why a software-centric approach enabled Flint to simplify payment acceptance for service-centric businesses by eliminating the hardware and using the camera to securely scan cards.

Looking for point of sale software? Ran a Google search and got overwhelmed with your options? Let me help you get started. I’ve compared five of some of the most popular POS systems available today, hopefully one of them will work for you.

Before we jump into it, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page vocab-wise. Each of the systems below is either locally installed, cloud-based, or a hybrid.

• Locally installed means that you can’t access your data etc. from anywhere except the registers/computers that the solution was installed on, but it is completely functional without any Wi-Fi, etc.
• Cloud-based is basically the opposite – data’s fully accessible from anywhere, but if the Wi-Fi’s out, you can’t do anything.
• Hybrid models attempt at being the best of both worlds: data is fully accessible and you can still make sales with the Wi-Fi out.

1. Lightspeed POS

Lightspeed is a well-established name in the POS world. They’ve been around for years and really know their stuff. They’re a cloud-based system and work really well for small to mid-sized retailers.

Pros: Lightspeed comes with expansive inventory management capabilities and integrates well with Shopify and MailChimp. Lightspeed’s inventory management allows you to categorize stock by whatever you want (month it was released, type, anything). Reviews find LightSpeed incredibly easy-to-use. It’s mainly intended to be run off a tablet, so its app functionality is extremely good. (It can also be run on a PC through a web browser for the traditional paystation.)

Cons: One thing mentioned in the above review is that it is very difficult to sell an item without scanning the barcode. This can be a real issue, of course, given how easy it is for barcodes to go missing (a problem I know is widespread from personal experience).

They’re the most expensive solution on this list for both software and hardware kits, so you need keep this in mind when budgeting.

Pricing:

• $76/month: 1 register, 5 employees
• $128/month: 2 registers, 10 employees
• $222/month: 4 registers, 20 employees
• POS Hardware Kit: $999, for iPad

After you hit the top level, you can continue adding a single register for $49/month with 3 employees, or add another employee for $10/month. You can add Lightspeed eCommerce for $49/month and if you want to run more complex reports, you can pay $21/month for advanced reporting.

2. NetSuite POS

NetSuite’s POS solution is really more of a retail management system, coming fully loaded with eCommerce, inventory management, and more! It’s a cloud-based solution aimed mainly at midmarket sized retailers, but it’s flexible enough to work for both smaller and larger retailers.

Pros: As I said, this is not just a POS system, it’s a retail management system. That means it has inventory management, eCommerce, CRM, marketing automation, order management, business intelligence, and financial software all on a single platform. Phew!

One of the most interesting things about this is that instead of forcing you to roll out the entire suite, NetSuite offers you the ability to roll out just the solution you need. As Brenda Whisenhunt, Netsuite’s Director of Vertical Marketing, filled me in: that means you don’t have to do an entire rip and replace all at once – you can replace bits and pieces of your old system as you go along. It also means if you’re a small retailer who doesn’t need all the features, you only have to buy what you need.

Other than that bundle of features:

• Because NetSuite has a complete CRM system, it’s able to provide you with a full 360-degree view of your customers – customer purchase history, what they like, what their email address is. All that good stuff.
• It’s developed for a touch-screen interface – PC or tablet. At this point in the game, as a mid – large-size retailer, if you aren’t using touchscreen, you’re in the dinosaur age.
• It’s cloud-based, so you check on the system from anywhere you can access the web. You can also ring anyone up from anywhere you can access the web.

Cons: It’s cloud-based – so if Wi-Fi goes down you won’t be able to access it. Some users have also complained about NetSuite’s customer service being poor and too expensive.

Pricing: Because NetSuite is extremely customizable, pricing is very customizable, so they have not released a standard pricing model like the other solutions on this list. Pricing is a monthly fee, and is based on the modules bought as well as a number of locations and registers. You can click on this link for some averages prices.

3. ShopKeep

ShopKeep is a great option for small and growing retailers. It was developed by a small retailer, so this company understands other small retailers intimately. The product is developed in a hybrid, cloud-based/locally installed model.

Pros: They’re on a hybrid model so you get all your information stored on the cloud, but you can still ring people up when the Wi-Fi goes out. In addition, this is another system that is a fully loaded retail management system, not just POS. Their inventory management features, in particular, are reputed to be extremely useful. The reporting feature is also very in-depth. You can look at reports from all sorts of angles, including visually.

It’s also widely held to be so user-friendly that any of the old ladies I used to work with at the women’s clothing store could use it.

Oh, I almost forgot! Shopkeep also offers incredible customer service – it’s 24/7 support via chat, phone and email. As put by Brian Zang, Shopkeep’s VP of Sales and Marketing, “Customer care [is] the core to who we are and … we invested a lot in this from the beginning…We believe that the system you choose to run your business should do more than just take payments and process transactions; it should help you grow your business and make your life easier.”

Cons: A fairly common complaint with Shopkeep is that they’re not as feature-rich as other solutions – they aren’t able to support multiple sales rates, for instance.

Pricing:

• $49/month/register. No contract; you just pay as you go.
• POS Hardware Kit: Starts at $669.

Shopkeep’s hardware seems to be a little more expensive than some products I’ve seen. This reviewer spent $1100 with Shopkeep to get fully outfitted – and that didn’t include the cost of the iPad. However, Shopkeep does make it very clear that the app is designed to be used from an iPad with absolutely no other hardware if necessary, so if your store is very small, that’s the option for you.

4. VendHQ

Vend is a New Zealand-based POS system that works for all sizes of retailers. They are very reasonably priced and even have a free version, ideal for small business retailers, but they have larger plans that can suit even an enterprise level retailer.

Pros: Vend has integrated inventory management and CRM. And the CRM comes with a customer loyalty program. Which is pretty awesome. Vend’s reporting capabilities, like Shopkeep’s, are also phenomenal. They’re in depth and you can set sales goals for employees. These guys also offer 24/7 customer support. You do have to pay monthly for the support, but they give not just support, but constant training and set-up assistance as well.

Cons: It’s cloud-based – so when the Wi-Fi’s out, you’re pretty much out of luck. The register will still have some limited functionality – it can still take cash sales. However, in this day and age, if you can’t take card sales for an hour, you’re pretty much not going to make a sale. Also, Vend has no employee management capabilities, even ones as simple as punching in and out.

Pricing:

• Free – 1 store, 1 register, 10 products, 10,000 customers, 1 user, only community support
• $59/month* – 1 store, 500 products
• $85/month* – 1 Store, Unlimited products
• $169/month* – Unlimited stores, Unlimited products
• $35/month* – Each register after the first free one.
• $19/month – Phone and set-up assistance, on-going training

*When billed annually.

5. Shopify POS

Shopify is best known for its pretty stellar eCommerce system, but their POS system is nothing to sneeze at. It’s a small business solution intended to be fully mobile, and while it’s technically a hybrid system, Shopify POS is more cloud-based than anything else.

Pros: Like I said, Shopify has a really great eCommerce system. Their POS was made with the intention of fully integrating with the eCommerce side. Basically, if you’re a small retailer looking for a POS solution that is going to seamlessly and easily integrate with an eCommerce store, this is one of the best solutions available.

Other pros:

• Shopify accepts a large array of payment methods, including store credit, gift cards, and split payments.
• You have complete store management features – that means order tracking and employee management.
• CRM integrated.

Cons:

• The biggest complaint people seem to have with Shopify is the fact that they charge fairly high credit card processing fees.
• Even though it’s technically a hybrid system, you can’t process credit cards when Wi-Fi is out.
• Another thing that can cause problems with the software is that the stock tracking feature does not alert you when an item is low or no longer available. That means you can technically sell products you no longer have. It’s not a huge issue, but it does mean you need to keep an eye on your products.
• Finally, the reporting can be costly –$50/month to get more than basic reports and another $100 on top of that to be able to customize your reports.

Price:

• $49/month – Unlimited products, unlimited staff, unlimited registers, 24/7 support, 2.7% credit card rate
• $99/month- All that plus gift cards and professional reporting, 2.4% credit card rate
• $199 – All of the $99 level plus customized reporting, 2.15% credit card rate
• $20/month – online store
• $649 – iPad hardware kit

Bloomberg Small Business Report

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How Retailers and Small Businesses Can Grow With Less

Small Biz Technology

Walk into just about any coffee shop or other small business and there’s a good chance there’s an iPad or other tablet on the counter. They’ve replaced traditional cash registers in many restaurants, giving business owners flexible and inexpensive options to ring up tickets and process credit cards.

Customers may also get some benefits from the new systems. In addition to emailed receipts that reduce pocket trash, calculating a tip has gotten a lot easier for those too bothered to do the math. Instead of doubling the sales tax or attempting to calculate a fraction on the fly, customers can now simply choose a preselected percentage or dollar tip amount. The tablet then concludes the transaction quickly and neatly.

Compared to traditional cash machines, it’s all really efficient. And it’s costing you money.

The traits that matter the most are quite simple — and I actually learned all of them from my high school English teacher, Mrs. Miller. The lucky among us have had a teacher that played a pivotal role in shaping not only our work habits, but also our character. Mrs. Miller was a stern but caring teacher whose wisdom and high expectations continue to impact my work today. She encouraged me to:

Be dogged

For a long time, every English essay I submitted would come back liberally marked up with comments like, “Poor overall structure,” “insufficient evidence,” or “overly wordy.” After sitting me down and explaining in more detail where I was going wrong, Mrs. Miller would encourage me to implement the changes we had discussed instead of wallowing in defeat.

Any successful business person, from a small-business owner to a seasoned entrepreneur, experiences pitfalls. Picking yourself up and trying again after a defeat or setback is key to long-term success.

But intelligent

Unfortunately, after a round of quick edits, I’d often then receive an even worse grade than I received initially. The point? My English teacher believed that improvement wasn’t easy or an automatic function of repetition. If you wanted a better grade, you had to be willing to use your own mind, as well as work hard and fast.

The most successful business people I know put this in place every day: They are diligent and tenacious but also smart and selective in how they apply their efforts.

Be convincing

There is no greater asset in business than an ability to sell your vision to others. Whether dealing with customers, employees, managers, suppliers, journalists or venture capitalists, a successful outcome almost always depends on the same core competency that I picked up in Mrs. Miller’s English class — an ability to build a logical, well-structured narrative that persuades others of the merits of an argument.

The most impactful business people I’ve had the privilege of working with have the unique ability to think through a problem and only interject when he or she can marshal the relevant facts, statistics, insights, precedents, and comparables in support of a cohesive argument. These persuasive, thoughtful leaders are almost always the ones that actually move things forward, because people around them are convinced and inspired to act.

Be open

I had a lot of strong opinions in high school.  I still do. But Mrs. Miller taught me to appreciate one fundamental fact about English literature, life and business: There is rarely only one right answer.

Business building is a discovery process. Yes, it’s important to have a clear vision — and the drive to see it through — but the best business people are not blinded by their own passions and convictions. They remain open to a changing world and the experience and insight of others and are willing to make changes where necessary.

A successful career in business will call on a wide range of skills and require no small degree of luck — but when I want to remind myself of the basics, I always return to Mrs. Miller.

Experience, the saying goes, is the best teacher.

So for this week’s “CMO Wants to Know,” we asked marketing executives to share the lessons they learned in 2014 and how they’ll apply them in 2015. Read on for their answers. One of the many topics mentioned is sure to hit home.

Trisha Antonsen, Associate Director of Content Creation, Wayfair.com, told CMO.com:
2014 was a big year for content creators and marketers in terms of really growing and excelling in creation and production. For us it was all about producing quality and quantity across our different brands. 2015 brings a lot of opportunity for distribution and innovative integration into other channels and mediums: TV, YouTube, print, podcasts, social. With all this, the responsibility to clearly educate people on the power and benefits of content marketing becomes more important. I think there’s still a lot of mystery around content marketing. As publishers we need to make sure that, at the end of the day, we’re creating content that people want to consume.

Margaret Molloy, Global Chief Marketing Officer, Siegel+Gale, told CMO.com:
My greatest learning in 2014 is the importance of patience and staying the course. The proliferation of new technologies coupled with the popularization of marketing as a topic of conversation means that marketers can easily become the proverbial kid in the candy store, sampling lots of shiny new things without a mature direction. Building a brand and leading the team that delivers it is a long-term initiative.

Mindful of this truth, in 2015 I will set our marketing vision and guide our team to prioritize the essentials to realizing it. Taking this approach will not preclude innovation, however; it will require simplifying and declining some good opportunities to focus on doubling down on the programs that have the greatest impact.

Jeff Fagel, CMO, G/O Digital (Gannett’s digital marketing services arm), told CMO.com:
Visuals matter more than ever before. We buy with our eyes, whether it’s in line at McDonald’s or through in-stream native digital executions. We now have far better technologies, devices, and precise marketing capabilities available to us. And our shopping experiences are now faster, easier, and more engaging–all thanks to technology.

But to be successful in delivering online-to-offline sales, marketers and retailers first have to be willing to shed their old-school labels of visuals as creative or media assets, and instead place them squarely into the commerce category. 2015 will be the year where we break free from A/B testing and push creative to limitless executions.

For example, marketers can take the creative assets of a single TV ad and localize it into hundreds of thousands of digital video ad units with hyperlocal precision down to the individual price, store, and quantity available for featured products. Ultimately, this is a win-win. On one hand, shoppers benefit from locally relevant, personalized experiences, and on the other hand, marketers see higher returns on their investment.

Jen Gray, VP of Marketing and Creative Services, HelloWorld, told CMO.com:
Everyone these days is in the content marketing business. With both B2B and B2C communications to navigate, marketers are creating mass quantities of materials for their audiences to consume, to rank higher in search engines, etc.–it’s hard to stand out. Our “information superhighway” pretty much has gridlock.

What we continue to learn in marketing our own as well as our clients’ businesses is getting the mix of content right for your audience. Think about the right mix of quality, quantity, complexity, and distribution. Just creating mass amounts of content on the subjects you think your audience wants to hear can quickly become noise and, frankly, a waste of your valuable time and dollars. Is anyone finding your content and reading it? Are they identifying with it? Is it causing your cash register to ring? First, be sure you can answer these questions. Then, invite your audience to experience your content through earned, owned, paid, and syndication strategies. This will help you pass by all the traffic and reach your destination faster.

Amanda Chin, Vice President of Marketing, ShopKeep, told CMO.com:
I’ve always been inspired by Seth Godin’s framework, the circles of marketing. In 2014, I found this framework applies to community building as well. If you expect to build a community of your customers, you have to start with your own community of internal team members. If there is misalignment at home about the company mission and purpose, and there is no passion for your product, you have no right to expect that from your customers. I was fortunate in 2014 to join a company with a team that has a genuine desire to champion our customers, and it’s key for our marketing team to look to them as the heart and soul of our community as we plan our outreach programs.

It’s amazing to me that our team members already visit customers on their own time on weekends and evenings, both locally and when they are traveling out of town. I’d hate to formalize this process as it’s happening organically. But I’d love to make it easier for our team to know where our customers are, through easier visualization of their locations, so when they are taking a day trip somewhere, they know they can just head down the street to the local coffee shop that’s using ShopKeep and share a smile.

Joe Stanhope, SVP Marketing of Signal, told CMO.com:
Marketers know that the future is cross-channel. But despite their significant investments in technology across the digital ecosystem, in 2014 marketers felt like they were stuck in first gear, stymied by organizational silos, fragmentation of data and touch points, and lack of interoperability.

In 2015, marketers will try to close the cross-channel maturity gap. They’ll be experimenting like crazy. Cross-channel data collection will be a key focus as the launching pad for more relevant and cohesive interactions with consumers. Working toward a single view of the customer, marketers will be wiring up mobile, Web, CRM, and point-of-sale channels in order to harness and deploy more data. Brands and agencies will be building big data feeds to enable cross-channel modeling and distribution to a wide variety of endpoints, such as data warehouses, analytics or attribution platforms, reporting systems, and more. Measuring customer behavior across devices and merging cross-channel data will be the precursors to the next, necessary step of activating data.

Achieving a unified, actionable view of the customer’s cross-channel journey is still a ways off. But in the coming year, it will be very exciting to watch the results of cutting-edge campaigns that will be utilizing the latest cross-channel capabilities.

Matt Rosenberg, SVP of Marketing, 140 Proof, told CMO.com: 
Last year, 140 Proof studied the way people use different social platforms and found that they are very conscious of the different ways to connect, the content available to share, and privacy of each option. Users are customizing their social experience, cultivating different personalities across platforms, and avoiding the brand intrusions they don’t want to see. This all means marketers are going to have to start working smarter, and stop trying to be their consumers’ friends on social. It’s more crucial than ever for marketers and advertisers to manage targeting, messaging, and frequency to keep their audiences informed, without driving them crazy. At 140 Proof, we plan to leverage these learnings to do what we do even better: make ads works for real humans.

Laney Lewis, Senior Director of Marketing, Clearleap, told CMO.com:
Today’s great marketers know where their consumers are and do their best to predict where they’re headed. Their secret? Moving fast. Whether it’s getting in on the latest popular platform, like video or mobile, or jumping in the conversation on topical cultural or industry moments, like the World Cup or Sochi Olympics, in 2014 we learned that staying on your toes is the key to staying relevant and successful. In 2015, we’re focusing on staying flexible and taking advantage of great opportunities for engagement whenever they come.”

Brad Mattick, VP Product and Marketing, BrighEdge, told CMO.com:
2014 was the year of content creation, but looking back, I think we all could have spent more time focusing on performance, both of our own content, as well as our competitors’. Even though we saw vast amounts of money being poured into content, most of us still struggle to measure the return of our investments and digest the sea of unstructured data that we’re currently swimming in.

In 2015, we’ll be doubling down to better use the data we have, which will ultimately improve our ability to make real-time recommendations for targeting and optimizing our content marketing. With the content marketing competition as fierce as it is, I think that the key to marketers’ success will be contingent on the fusion of human creativity, technology adoption, and machine learning. In other words, rather than being “creation-driven,” like we were in 2014, we’ll be data-driven in 2015.

Christine Warner, Senior Content Strategist, Skyword, told CMO.com:
Based on my content marketing and brand strategy work in 2014, I plan to champion multichannel personalization in 2015. A single engagement with personal relevance isn’t enough. All marketing efforts must work together to deliver an experience that addresses personal needs and interests. To achieve integrated personalization, you need to uncover insights about the people you’re targeting that can be leveraged in each touch point. Don’t market to the masses–market to the individual.

Jay Acunzo, Director of Platform, NextView Ventures and Co-founder, Boston Content, told CMO.com
I learned that all content marketing truly should be is the act of solving the same problem that your product solves. That’s the only definition we should ever need, but it unfortunately gets shrouded in noise and hype. Yes, content solves customer problems through a different form than product, and even less well (hence, our ability to funnel people to our products), but both departments are tasked with providing solutions for customers by building assets the company owns. When they work in harmony, great content helps customers before they’re ready to buy, while great products help customers after. But both address the same core problem for which the customer seeks solutions.

This may seem simple, but it’s amazing how many organizations still don’t think this way. So, in 2015, don’t just get closer to sales–get closer to product. They are in the business of understanding customers and developing solutions to their problems or fulfillments of their desires. As marketers, we’re now in that exact same business.

Mark Gambill, CMO, MicroStrategy, told CMO.com:
The biggest thing I learned in 2014 is something we all learned back in school but sometimes forget or put to the side because we are mesmerized by all of the bright and shiny digital and social tools and objects–and that is, always place a primary emphasis on understanding your customers and what they truly want. It doesn’t pay to generalize, especially in the age of personalization.

Making the investment in our relationships and in knowing what helps our customers succeed will help us make appropriate investment decisions related to our marketing spend in 2015. Ultimately, all marketing investments need to play a role in addressing customer needs, whether it’s direct path to purchase or part of the mosaic that is your brand and messaging.

Dan Kimball, CMO, Thismoment, told CMO.com:
While 2014 saw many social media milestones and improvements, it also brought with it some consumer privacy blunders on the part of corporations as they looked to engage on social. This year, we can expect consumers to become even more protective of their personal brands, while also engaging consumers through user-generated content (UGC). CMOs looking to leverage UGC in their marketing campaigns will need to understand these sensitivities as well as the legal rights consumers have around the content they produce. In 2015, we’ll see CMOs approach UGC as they do other third-party content. Before they use it for marketing purposes, they will first seek proper rights and permissions or risk losing brand ambassadors.

Gary Survis, CMO, Syncsort, told CMO.com:
Last year we experimented on many different digital marketing tools. This year, we are going to make decisions: Stop doing the marginal performers, double down on what is working, and keep experimenting with what is new. There is rapid change in the tactics we can utilize to connect with our target audience. Successful marketers in 2015 will be those who test new ideas and act on the ones that work best.

Julie Ginches, CMO, eXelate, told CMO.com:
The average lifespan of the CMO used to be a pretty dismal number, with sources quoting as low as 12 months. But lately we’ve seen that number steadily rising, now averaging around 45 months, according to research firm Spencer Stuart. The reason? CMOs have been waking up to the power of data–and the technology that enables them to glean all-important customer insights from that data. In 2015, the opportunities to learn and grow businesses from technologies that inform customer intelligence are better and easier to implement than ever. So, at eXelate, our strategy for the year is to do everything we can to help educate and empower the CMO to leverage data in new ways: to be more relevant to individual customers no matter what channel or device they are on, to find more prospects likely to convert to a sale, and to measure what’s working in faster ways. We will practice what we preach by launching an effort designed to customize information and programs tailored to the needs of the marketer and their organization.

Christopher Penn, VP of Marketing Technology, SHIFT Communications, told CMO.com:
The biggest marketing learning in 2014 for us and our clients was leveraging big data tools much more effectively to uncover hidden opportunities. For example, we fed our digital marketing data into big data tools like IBM Watson and found all kinds of hidden associations that have radically changed how we formulate strategy. These associations and correlations aren’t intuitive, and they’re not visible to the naked eye or even simple analysis tools like a spreadsheet. Going forward, these tools will become part and parcel of every data-driven marketer’s toolkit if they want to remain competitive. The good news for marketers everywhere is that all of these tools are coming down in price; many are becoming accessible even to small businesses. It’s now a question of training and education, rather than access.

Nelson Rodriguez, VP of Global Marketing, Aquent, told CMO.com:
Our marketing department has, traditionally, been very tactically focused. Our goals have likewise been very tactical: order and lead generation. While it’s a given that marketing should have measurable goals closely tied to business goals, without an agreed-on strategic framework, discussion of specific tactics happens in a void. In 2014, we made a shift toward articulating our strategic vision, and it has gone a long way toward helping us evaluate our tactical priorities, focus our efforts, and, more importantly, say “no” when a proposed initiative doesn’t fit our strategic goals. As a result, our 2015 plan is both results-oriented and strategically informed.

Kim Riedell, SVP Product and Marketing, Digilant, told CMO.com:
My biggest takeaway from 2014 is that consumers’ multidevice browsing habits and constantly shifting interests make traditional segmentation models insufficient for synthesizing the wealth of data currently available to marketers. We have moved well beyond identifying consumers with broad segments like “soccer moms” or “car enthusiasts.” In 2015 we should move toward far more dynamic models that can ingest the volume, velocity, and variety of behavioral data and develop consumer personas based on real-time information. Targeting an individual based on multiple identifiable characteristics, rather than a collection of consumers based on a single shared attribute, may result in campaigns that reach fewer consumers but pay off in the form of vastly increased engagement and conversion.

Chuck Cordray, CEO, Inlet, told CMO.com:
One of the biggest lessons we learned last year is that marketers need to meet customers where they want to be–it’s not just about your Web site or your mobile app. The question to ask in 2015 will be, “Where and how do my consumers want to engage with my brand?” The plan for savvy marketers this year will be to put consumer experience first and communicate where it is most convenient for them. Brands that can’t do that will be left out in the cold.

Yasmeen Coning, VP of Marketing, Genesis Media, told CMO.com:
In 2014, marketing became an integrated part of every layer of business for Genesis Media. Marketing was a true collaborative effort across all sectors of the company, from sales to product to operations. When marketing is involved in every aspect of the organization, it helps bolster visibility and brand equity across the board–helping ensure ROI and, ultimately, bottom line. As we kick off 2015, it’s imperative that each sector of the business continues to join forces in order to increase growth and profitability. As the saying goes, there is no “I” in team, and that is something all companies should live by.

Louise Doorn, CMO, Dstillery, told CMO.com: 
Data and technology dominated the marketing discourse in 2014 and will remain top of mind for marketers in 2015.

It’s not an easy task to deliver marketing automation, quality data science, and meaningful analytics across paid, earned, and owned media. The mandate for every marketer is to establish a scalable framework with reliable technology partners in 2015. This framework should be flexible with open APIs to evolve based on customer data and campaign effectiveness analytics.

But the framework alone is not enough. Marketing science and technology is one part of the equation. Consumer and public opinions determine brand reputation. Building a likable brand based on quality products with high integrity and solid service has to be a central tenet. Marketing will continue to spill over into customer experience–an important focus for 2015. There continues to be a huge opportunity for brands to surprise and delight consumers and inspire them to share remarkable experiences through their social graphs.