3 more great automated marketing and sales technologies that will transform your business

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Salesforce

In our previous article we reviewed the three most established automated marketing and sales platforms. Here, we will go a bit farther afield, and review three newer, but still proven transformative technologies which may well be exactly what your business needs: Saleforce Pardot Want to generate more leads and close sales faster? Get the big picture on how your campaign is doing? Then Saleforce Pardot is your tool. How? Intelligent marketing – which is a different way of saying relevant marketing. What this means is that every step on the road to generate, nurture, and transform leads into customers’ needs to be based on relevant communication. The content must match the audience, individual or market segment you are approaching. That’s the only way to increase the proportion of leads that respond to your offers and move up the sales funnel. When Day Publishing Company implemented intelligent marketing in their strategy,…

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3 great automated marketing and sales technologies that will transform your business

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Hubspot

So, without further ado, let us consider which marketing automation software might be right for your business. Hubspot You’ve probably already heard about this hot new technology. So, what’s so great about it? The real question is what is there not to love about it? It has a widely recognized, proven, value. It is versatile and flexible in its capabilities, enabling you to generate and nurture leads, and convert more of them into sales. And all this can be done with zero person to person talks with your customers, offering you a literally cost-free tool to boost sales. If this sounds like you fell into the sci-fi channel, you should bear in mind that reputable research institutes have already projected that by 2020 (yes, that’s next year), 85% of customers will make purchases without ever speaking to a human. Moreover, HubSpot comes pre-equipped with the capability to integrate additional marketing…

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Automated marketing and sales technologies that will transform your business

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Automated marketing

Running a business isn’t easy, especially with all the new technologies and techniques the competition is using. You need to master the art and skill of lead generation and nurturing, paid advertising, email marketing, sales funnel, as well as wrap your mind around the esoteries of the internet of things and software of a service. But there are only 24 hours a day and as a new business owner you need to spend at least two of them catching a nap, right? The good news is that with marketing automation software you can eliminate much of the drudge work, cut down on marketing costs and massively improve your lead generation and lead nurturing outcome. That is the trend of the business world – by 2013 79% of marketers were making use of some sort of marketing automation software to help manage their clients and leads. You may think that that…

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Software as a service: technical issues

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technical issues

The software as a service model is transforming the way companies, particularly SMBs do business. In our previous article we have reviewed data security and data ownership issues you need to take into account before adopting the SaaS model for your own business, but there are also technical considerations you must take into account. These are detailed below: The bandwidth glass ceiling The number one technical limitation of SaaS is that it relies on broadband and reliable internet connection. You are the best judge of whether your business has the internet connection required to keep your systems running 24-7. That said, no system, including on-site systems, is one hundred percent impervious to downtime. To overcome the particular vulnerability of the SaaS model, some SaaS vendors have integrated “offline” redundancies that enable your employees to keep on working even should the internet collapse. Once the system goes online, the data is…

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Software as a service: keeping your data safe, keeping your data yours.

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padlock fence barred close

In our previous article we outlined some of the caveats you should consider before you embrace the transformative power of the software as a service business model. Today, we will discuss ways to keep your data safe in spite of storing it with your SaaS vendor – and also preparing contingencies for the possibility that your SaaS vendor goes out of business. Keeping your data safe How to keep your data safe when you entrust it in the hands of an external SaaS provider? This is the conundrum which keeps many companies from fully embracing the SaaS business model. It is impossible to overstate the importance of security, both from a business competitiveness perspective and from the perspective of safeguarding your customer’s privacy. Still, given the ubiquitousness of online banking and online payment systems, it would seem that the security concerns are somewhat hyped up. After all, if we are…

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Software as a service: caveats cautions

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caveats cautions

In our previous article we concluded our initial review of SaaS applications you can implement right here, right now, to transform your business into all it can be. Chances are that at least one of these apps is a good fit for your business – but even if none of these apps quite match, there is almost certainly one that does. Stay tuned for additional updates on applications suitable for immediate implementation but also try to keep the big picture in mind: SaaS, when implemented correctly, offers reduced infrastructure and maintenance costs at comparable or better customer experience. More and more companies are making the transition to a wholly or mostly SaaS business model and at some point your company will likely want to do so as well. Early planning now will save you pain and costs later on down the line. However, that potential comes with several caveats and…

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The quick and dirty guide to transformative technologies: 3 Software as a Service applications for immediate implementation

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Dropbox

If you read our previous article then we know that you are hyped about the SaaS apps we presented. Perhaps you’ve even begun taking steps to implement them in your own business! However, more lies in store – in this article we will outline three more exciting SaaS apps which are transforming the business landscape: DocuSign, Dropbox and Slack .  8. DocuSign How annoying is it to print out a form, sign every line, scan it, send an email of the scanned signed copy, and then find out that the scan quality was too low, or that you missed a signature? Well, if you’re current and can use your smartphone to both scan and send it is not quite that bad, and if you have an electronic signature prepared then you can cut down considerably on the hassle, but can you count on each and every one of your clients…

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The quick and dirty guide to transformative technologies: 3 Software as a Service applications for immediate implementation

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Amazon web services

If you read our previous article then we know that you are hyped about the SaaS apps we presented. Perhaps you’ve even begun taking steps to implement them in your own business! However, more lies in store – in this article we will outline three more exciting SaaS apps which are transforming the business landscape: Amazon web services, Concur and Zendesk.   5. Amazon web services It doesn’t come as any great surprise that Jeff Bezos is expanding Amazon into the SaaS business, just as he has integrated SaaS and IoT enabled tools into his own operations, does it? Amazon may have started out as an e-commerce platform but it now provides a variety of cloud based applications on a pay as you go pricing model. At the moment, Amazon Web Services offers over 70 services ranging from analytics, deployment, computing, networking, storage and specific IoT enabled tools. 6. Concur…

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The quick and dirty guide to transformative technologies: 4 Software as a Service applications for immediate implementation

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Salesforce

If you read our previous article then you know that the software as a service business model offers many, many benefits to businesses, especially small and medium businesses (SMBs). However, said article did not offer you any specific applications you could implement in your businesses. In this article we will outline five such applications which are already transforming the marketplace. If these applications relate to your company mission or product then you definitely need to consider adapting them into your operations. So without further ado – 1. Saleforce.com This is the application that started it all – the first software as a service application to hit the market. In spite of the years that have passed, it remains one of the most common services used by companies transitioning to the software as service model. What does it do? What doesn’t it do? It provides customer relations management solutions that allow businesses…

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The quick and dirty guide to transformative technologies which can turn your business around: Software as a Service (SaaS)

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‏‏Get SaaSy Top 4 reasons TMS needs SaaS

What exactly is the software as a service? Its not a specific technology – rather it is a business-technology model which has sparked the imagination of all walks of the business reason – and for good cause. SaaS. Alternately known as hosted software, on-demand software and web-based software is essentially the delivery of online based services and applications. This represents a considerable shift from old style onsite installation, management and maintenance of specific software at specific physical sites. Things are much simpler with the SaaS business model since the service provider assumes responsibility for security and performance, enabling the service purchaser to massively save costs by forgoing maintaining a dedicated IT department and cutting down on maintenance downtime. This business model is particularly attractive for small and medium businesses, who often cannot afford to maintain a full-blown IT department. Is it any wonder that over 60 percent of all listed…

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