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Coverfox is India’s fastest growing online insurance portal where users can compare, buy and manage insurance policies. With an intuitive and transparent platform where can users can easily compare quotes from serveral insurance providers and purchase policies, Coverfox is giving traditional insurance agents a run for their money.

The internet has transformed the way in which people access information and buy products and services. The Banking and Insurance industry in India has seen a significant impact of this digital revolution. Coverfox was founded on the premise of making comparison of quotes and buying insurance policies a convenient, transparent and seamless process for consumers.

Auto insurance quotes are unique to each user depending on the model of car/bike, usage, etc. And hence marketing to these users has to be a 1:1 personalized experience. Coverfox’s strategic objectives were to,

• boost online conversions with cross channel engagement, and
• drive down cost per acquisition through focused personalization

They turned to Vizury to execute this digital strategy.

With Engage Finance, the growth marketing platform for the insurance vertical, Vizury implemented ‘user level quote feed’ to personalize messaging to each of Coverfox’s website users on Display and Facebook.

Here is a screenshot of a display ad banner personalized with premium amount, car model and image:

Engage personalized the digital journey of users who dropped off – starting from the quotes page through the proposal page and payment page of the Coverfox website. Personalized ads were served on a 1:1 basis to users on Display and Facebook.

In a period of 6 months, the cost of acquisition of a Vizury contributed conversion was brought down by 75% through focused user level personalization. User engagement (CTR) doubled too in this period.

Engage Finance is custom built for the BFSI vertical with these unique capabilities:

• An atomic technology stack that tightly integrates user data and multiple marketing channels
• Machine learning capabilities that power individual user level predictions and 1:1 messaging
• Deep expertise in the Insurance and Banking verticals that reflect in unique vertical specific features

Want to know more about what Vizury Engage can do for you? Get in touch at marketing@vizury.com.

Client interactions are the best sources of inspiration for blog stories, at least for me.

content

Peak season is here. And this year it’s going to be different.

Why so?

If you look closely, 2 unique trends emerge in the Indian insurance industry. One of them is a historical phenomenon which all of us are aware of,

1. PEAK SEASON SALES

60 – 70% of new insurance policies are bought between December and March every year. No prizes for guessing why. The Taxman plus the Indian last minute mentality together cause this spike in sales every year during these 3-4 months. People scramble to buy their policies to save on tax.

The second trend though is pertinent to the last one year and mind you, is here to stay:

2. DIGITAL EXPLOSION 

There has been a 200% increase in users browsing for insurance products online in the last one year. ‘Digital’ has transformed the Indian BFSI space and the Insurance industry has had a significant impact. Consumers access information, buy financial products and services online more than ever before.

One thing is clear – if you are an insurance provider, your website is going to see a tremendous increase in traffic come December ’16 – March ’17.

Are you prepared for this digital explosion? How can you make the most of these two trends to maximize online insurance sales this peak season.

INFOGRAPHIC: 5 Tips To Maximize Online Insurance Sales This Peak Season

Download this infographic for starters. It talks about 5 hot tips that will help you fine tune your digital strategy to grow online conversions.

How do you personalize website experience? How do you effectively engage with users outside your website? What are the new marketing channels? Its all in there.

MISSED THE WEBINAR?

Vizury also conducted a webinar last week on this theme with the Head of Online Marketing at Coverfox, Siddesh Kerkar as guest speaker. Subra Krishnan, SVP Products at Vizury hosted the session.

Siddesh spoke about how Vizury helped Coverfox bring down their Cost of Acquisition by 75% with user level quote based personalization.

You can watch the recording of the webinar by clicking here:

Write back to us at marketing@vizury.com with any questions or thoughts you might have.

Happy selling!

• Predict churn accurately – Predicting, rather than reacting, to consumer churn is something businesses have always deemed a priority, and incorporating machine learning algorithm in marketing automation results in churn predictions with a far greater degree of accuracy. The fact that these techniques incorporate the added criteria of time in data segmentation and ability to handle new information at every turn implies a far stronger likelihood of foretelling a potential uninstall, which means you can approach customer retention models with greater sophistication. By eliminating the need for periodic assumptions, and identifying holistic trends (For instance, the correlation between time spent away from the app and likelihood of uninstall), a higher level of accuracy can also be achieved in implementation of risk and intervention models

THE COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE- Web Push Notifications for E-Commerce

This eBook tells you how to use Web Push Notifications to win new customers and retain existing ones.

• Personalize product placements – What if your campaign could be so finely tuned that you’re not just eliminating consumers that do not fall under the broad segment you want to target, but also a sizable chunk of the desirable cohort as well, depending on their personal preferences and likelihood of viewing/reaction to a notification? In the marketing campaign example we looked at earlier, even a classic prototype of the intended target audience (say a 25 year old woman) will not be engaged with if she has shown no previous inclination to purchase or even browse similar products.

This also means that these eliminated users can be better targeted and engaged with by serving them Push or email         recommendations more aligned to their tastes and preferences, again with the accuracy of these predictions driven           up a notch by implementing machine learning techniques.

• Optimize user channels – Why blow a wad of cash up certain marketing channels when you can predetermine where returns can be maximized? By introducing machine learning techniques to digital marketing campaigns, you not only narrow down the people who will be served your ad, but also gain precise insight into what particular channel a consumer is most likely to engage with (in-app, Push, email etc). This makes complete monetary sense, but an equally big incentive is the fact that you won’t have to clutter up the targeted person’s interactive channels at every opportunity, resulting in a more aesthetic as well as a balanced advertising experience, which in turn increases the chance of user interaction.

If you’re a marketer for an E-Commerce brand, you probably have a toolkit packed with channels that allow you to build marketing conversations with your audiences in so many different places. Except, your toolkit is never complete. It’s interesting how digital marketing has been constantly evolving over the last few years. And just when you thought it cannot get any better, there’s another novel channel that gets added to the all-powerful marketing strategy. In one of our earlier blogs, we spoke about Browser Push Notifications – the new kid on the block.

In this blog, we tell you all that you must know before you begin implementing Browser Notifications on your website.

What are Browser Push Notifications?

These are notifications sent from a website to the user’s browser and can be recieved by the user even while the website is not open on the device. In fact, these notifications are similar to mobile App Push Notifications, except that these messages work on websites instead of apps.

Which devices and browsers support Browser Push?

Browser Notifications can be sent from both desktop and mobile websites. The browsers that are compatible with these notifications include:

• Chrome on Android, Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
• Safari version 7.1 + on desktop Mac OS X
• Firefox version 44+ on desktop, version 48+ on mobile devices

THE COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE- Web Push Notifications for E-Commerce

This eBook tells you how to use Web Push Notifications to win new customers and retain existing ones.

How do Browser Push Notifications work?

There are 3 key requirements for browser notifications to work:

• These notifications can be implemented only on HTTPS enabled domains. But with a little work-around HTTP websites too can implement this functionality.
• Service workers, push and notifications APIs must be supported by the browser.
• A user must have opted-in to begin receiving browser notifications.

Opt in and opt out for users:

Opt in: When a user visits your website, they will see a prompt (i.e. an opt-in) asking her to allow web push notifications from your website. If the user clicks on the “Allow” button, she is added to your subscriber list.

Opt out: The user also has the option of opting out of browser notification service from your website at any given time. Here’s an explainer video that tells you how a user can opt out of your browser push notifications.

Why Browser Push Notifications?

How do Browser Push Notifications perform in comparison with emails? What are the inner workings of Browser Push? What metrics must you track to find out the effectivenss of Browser Notifications? Here are answers to all of these questions and more.

To know more about chrome notifications, push notifications on ios, web push notification Browser Push Notifications and  push messages visit our website https://www1.vizury.com/

This blog post tries to look at a future online advertising world after browsers decide to block third party cookies by default. How would things be post an imminent nuclear first-strike against the online advertising industry?

The future of the Display eco-system relies heavily on the big three: Google, Yahoo and Facebook. For the original Display Lumascape Image, please go to: http://www.lumapartners.com/lumascapes/display-ad-tech-lumascape

Firefox announced in Feb 2013 to change its third party cookie default setting and it had the IAB General Counsel Mike Zaneis tweeting ‘This default setting would be a nuclear first strike against ad industry’. Why is there so much brouhaha about cookies? Tracking users relies on browser cookies . Without user tracking there can be no intelligent advertising and performance analytics would go for a toss. The caveat is there is a fear that intelligent advertising may become ‘intelligence’ and user online privacy might go for a toss.

We at Vizury believe in gearing up for industry disruptions and adapting timely course-corrections. We researched this topic in great detail for all possible alternatives / solutions to third party cookies.

Browser Fingerprinting / LSOs / work-arounds to stamp cookies such as URL based identification, sub-domain-based cookie stamping are all immediate alternatives. But none of them are fool-proof / provide sufficient user privacy so as to replace cookie based user-tracking. Since this is an industry-wide problem, some hacks in the code will not be a long-term solution. What is needed is a solution applicable across the industry.

The problem is accentuated by the fact that each web browser has a unique ‘default’ behavior pertaining to browser cookies. While Safari blocks ‘setting’ third party cookies by default (but allows third party cookies that already exist), Firefox does not (but contemplated going the Safari way last year), Chrome and IE accept all third party cookies by default.

The reasons for this are quite simple: A. Money B. User Experience (Privacy) C. A mix of both

The online ad industry has been one of the fastest growing industries in the world providing a whole lot of opportunities resulting in the creation of numerous small entrepreneurs operating in this medium. What started out as an ad network business has now grown into a behemoth spawning Ad Networks / DSPs / SSPs / Ad Exchanges / Retargeting Companies / Analytics Providers and so on. The Display Lumascape (http://www.lumapartners.com/lumascapes/display-ad-tech-lumascape/) clearly depicts the ever-burgeoning online advertising industry.

In the last few months, things have changed. While Safari users factored only to about 5% of all browsers in the PC world, with smartphones on the rise the balance has tilted and this is having dire implications on third-party cookie based advertising. In certain geographies, Safari+iOS comprises of about 50% of users compared to all other browsers. Hence, ad tech companies are increasingly bothered about retargeting users with third party cookies blocked.

Safari Default – Does it guarantee total privacy?

It does not. Apple’s privacy policy controls how they control user data. Also, the Safari default allows companies having websites with a lot of repeat visitors (facebook.com / google.com / yahoo.com) to continue to track users. So, it basically puts the user’s privacy in the hands of a select few companies.

But is this a threat or an opportunity?

It is both. For all the website owners / premium publishers – it is a big opportunity to set up the next business eco-system. For all the third party networks / DSPs / SSPs / retargeting players, it is a big threat, as essentially, the problem is not with cookies, but with third party tracking.

Why is this a threat for third party networks?

Cookies have been the most efficient way to ID users thus far. With that out of the picture, customized ad serving / user segmentation and targeting / user tracking & reporting – all would fail – resulting in a big blow to the third party networks in particular, though not limited only to them.

Why is this an opportunity for website owners / premium publishers?

Two big players are definitely going to be more or less unaffected by the Safari default setting as of today: Facebook and Yahoo. Both of these use their own domains for stamping cookies that are used in Advertising (Yahoo made the transition last month). Google is slightly worse-off as it relies on DoubleClick domain cookies. But potentially, it can make the transition to track users based on google.com’s cookies through some technical changes. These three have very high user reach and so, would be able to track a lot of users. (Almost 90% of the searches in the world are on Google).

This means that with Safari’s Cookie Block Default Setting, these three have an opportunity to disrupt the entire display eco-system and emerge as the front-runners controlling most of the display buys and will involve crippling the entire relatively small entrepreneur space, crippling all DSPs, SSPs, retargeting players, behavioral targeting players, DMPs and hence, crippling all innovation.

There exists a better option in the RTB / programmatic buying world by creating a certified eco-system of third party players. This implies, at the very least, the top 3 Ad Exchanges opening up their own user identification service for other players to piggyback on. Google already sends its unique Google ID for the user in every bid request sent to the retargeting player. The retargeting player can carry on retargeting by identifying users through Google IDs and not its own cookies.

But is this as simple as it sounds? What are the complexities involved and how can Ad-Tech companies overcome them? All this and more in my next blog. Keep watching this space.

When I was young, I would enjoy riding my bicycle for hours. One day I observed a mechanic repair my bicycle. Thereafter I would almost daily spend some time on getting something or else fixed in the bike by myself, whether it was needed or not. I found myself enjoying the fixing more than riding. Let me blame the additional knowledge and curiosity I grew subconsciously in technical aspects of the bike for that.

I find this quite analogical to how some of the best known digital marketing technologies today are keeping us super busy in technicalities, more than driving real business performance.

Some of these are not fully fit or technically complete to be part of enterprise digital ecosystem to yield the desired results. While business is expecting real performance and results to flow in (like yesterday) there are some passionate individuals super-busy in “something” digital for quite some time while others, especially their competition may have already started reaping benefits of perfect digital marketing execution.

What is this “something”? What do the functionally incomplete technologies do subconsciously to the digital experts? Yes, these technologies make us all busy making it work for business somehow OR busy doing it the other way round.

With the very nature of exotic-ness, digital enablers capture our imagination and curiosity. We start growing our interest and term it as “Knowledge” to know about its incompleteness. Some might even call it as being their baby, isn’t it a pure passion?

Incomplete digital technologies demand that we know them inside out. To a passionate human mind, a challenge is a challenge. He or she would work on it with utmost honesty and great hard work. We might even pick up the battle of making it work for us. It’s just some one’s incomplete job. We often advocate a pseudo personal growth in working on getting this stuff to finally work for us.

The day would come when someone really external to the whole digital mess realizes that all of this was happening at the cost of real business. And the pyramid of all the effort would collapse.

To so many capability questions about technologies, that have direct performance impact in digital marketing, the common answer is “Yes, we know this and we can do it with our digital systems” and to the next question, “Why are you not doing it, already?” the response is a deep silence.

The more I deal in digital marketing for enterprises, I feel that having to know/ work less in depth about technology is much better for razor sharp ability to stick to business performance metrics in digital.

This starts with selecting a matured digital marketing ecosystem that has demonstrated performance and does not need it’s own fixing to come at the cost of business that adopts it.

Next in this series, I shall further qualify the terms “Incomplete”, “Selection” and “Matured ecosystem”.

Meanwhile, don’t hesitate to write to vishal.c@vizury.com with any questions or thoughts you might have.

We know the title says 51 blogs, but we’re feeling really generous so we’re going to send more than that your way. Much more.

The Internet is a storehouse of information, but we know no one’s got heaps of free time. So we’ve take it upon ourselves to scour the web and gather roughly 100 blogposts from 51 different E-commerce and opinion sites. Each one comes complete with a short description, incase you fancy a brief on what you’re diving into

Get your coffee and bookmarks ready, and here we go

1. Backlinko

A SEO blog focussing on actionable SEO tips and strategies, backlinko also come up with frequent case studies. To put it simply, you need no better mentor for your fashion commerce site. Here’s some of their top work

E-commerce SEO (8,616-Word Guide + Actionable Case Study)

(Case Study) This SEO Checklist = 48.7% More Organic Traffic

Awesome! 16 Powerful SEO Copywriting Secrets (That Work Fast)

2. Hubspot

HubSpot are the pinoeers of inbound marketing- they effectively coined and popularized the term. They have a lovely library of ecommerce-related information, a few of which we’ve handpicked for your perusal

Applying Growth-Driven Design to Ecommerce Websites

7 Creative Content Ideas for Your Ecommerce Site

How to Disrupt the Fashion Industry: Inside Everlane’s Branding & Growth Strategy [Podcast]

3. Helpscout

Help Scout are a easy-to-use customer service solution who go to great lengths to publish high-quality content on their blog as well. Here’s one that teaches important customer service tactics and strategies in detail, even things as fundamental as avoiding any form of pessimism while conversing with a client.

Creating Customers for Life: 50 Resources on Loyalty, Churn, and Customer Retention

4. Practical Commerce

Practical Ecommerce is one of the proper veterans around, clocking in at a hefty 9 years, during which they have hosted hundreds of brilliant webinars. With a down to eath demenour and straightforward tone, they are a real asset to the industry. Here are a couple of their best blogs

Lessons from 99 Retail Website Footers | Practical Ecommerce

Lessons Learned: Fashionable Maternity Wear Sells | Practical Ecommerce

5. Quicksprout

Quicksprout offer soultions for all aspects of your website with the ultimate goal of helping you increase your traffic. Here are a couple of brilliant pieces on marketing strategies and business tips from their blog.

What Type of Content Gets Shared the Most on Twitter?

15 Types of Content That Will Drive You More Traffic

6. Smart Insights

Very conversion and number focused, the blogs we’ve chosen for you from Smart Insights can help out with your ads too- spend well. We also decided to throw in a CRO case study, so knock yourself out.

In-depth: A fashion brand CRO case study – Smart Insights Digital Marketing Advice

Brain scans reveal which ad types are most effective – Smart Insights Digital Marketing Advice

Instagram gives marketers even more features to play with – Smart Insights Digital Marketing Advice

7. Wordstream

Simply put, Wordstream are making online advertising easy, one solution at a time. Your one stop shop for tips on all things related to digital marketing

Marketing to Women: Why Do Brands Think Women Only Care About Fashion? | WordStream

11 Ways to Get More (Real!) Instagram Followers 

8. Better Retail

Better Retail’s mantra is simple : They gather and present to you ecommerce news headlines and top blogs from everywhere

Difficult Choices Kill Conversion Rates 

Improving Review Response Rates 

9. Buffer App

A truly fantastic blog, Buffer churns out articles on productivity, life hacks, and business. It’s not specifically about ecommerce, but the concepts are highly applicable to any entrepreneurs hoping to supplement their productivity in business and life.

15 Inspiring Entrepreneurs Who Earn Income on Social Media

The 20 Best New Social Media Tools to Try in 2017 (And How to Use Them) – The Buffer Blog

10. Kissmetrics

KISSmetrics run a very analytically driven blog, with their substantial ecommerce section making for a particularly great read. This is truly the place to go to gain knowledge on any kind of online marketing and strategy. Here are a few examples

Stop Neglecting Analytics in Your Customer Engagement Strategy

We Used the Latest Holiday Selling Data to Create These Cyber Monday Hacks

How Emotional Targeting Converts More Leads

6 Last-Minute Tips for Mobile Marketers Ahead of the Holiday Shopping Rush

11. Magento

Get the latest news, tips and advice on maximizing the reach of your online store from Magento’s ecommerce blog.

11 Tips For Fashion eCommerce Success | Magento Blog

Free Theme Women Fashion by Pagayo – Magento Connect

12. Moz

To put it succintly, Moz are home to the best SEO expertise.

Pruning Your eCommerce Site: How & Why 

Community Discussion – What’s the ROI of “pruning” content from your ecommerce site? 

How bad is duplicate content for ecommerce sites?

13. Small Business Trends

Exploring the trends driving small business, no matter which stage of running an online store you are in, this blog is always there to help as long as you call yourself a small business. Dig into that delicious turkey while this social media calendar helps you plan and shedule them all in your Buffer app.

Getting Business Funding Can be Daunting, but There’s Hope

The Surprising Small Business Saturday Shoppers You Should Target

Social Media Calendar Template for Small Business

14. Big Commerce

A nice mix of interesting case studies and inspirational posts, here are the best ones from one of the biggest commerce providers around.

7 Photography Best Practices for Online Fashion Merchandising

Fast Fashion Spurs Need for Change in Fashion Industry

Retail, Fashion, Tech: The Rise of Haute Couture for the Modern Consumer – The BigCommerce Blog

15. Econsultancy

News, design, UX comparisons of ecommerce sites, email and social media marketing are just some of the things you will find here. Lucikly, we’ve hand picked the best ones for you.

According to 32,198 emails, most retailers use boring subject lines 

Why is design thinking suddenly so important? 

How Glossier has used Instagram to create a cult following 

16. E c w i d

One of the best stomping grounds around for entrepreneurs and new stores. They talk a lot about logistics, pricing and web page optimisation, vital criteria for when you plan to start or are running a fashion commerce store online

7 Creative Ideas for Your E-Commerce Product Page

Optimizing Images for Web: A Practical Guide

An Entrepreneur?s Guide to Understanding Shipping Labels for E-Commerce Stores

17. Helpscout

Help Scout is a simple customer service solution that you should consider using for your ecommerce business, but they go above and beyond to publish high-quality content on their blog as well. The blog covers important customer service tactics and strategies–even things like how to avoid telling your customers that you “can’t” do something and instead craft a positive sentence.

How Disney Creates Magical Experiences (and a 70% Return Rate)

18. Prestashop

Here’s an Ecommerce blog on the nuts and bolts of running an online store, brought to you by the shopping cart experts at presta Shop .

[New Benchmark Report] Why Mobile is a Must for PrestaShop Fashion Retailers

The Nine Essential Features of an Online Fashion and Accessories Store

19. Shopify

Shopify’s blog is quite a rallying point for ecommerce agents and professionals, with thier comments section a regular bredding ground for elite, intellectual discussions. As a bonus, they have arguably the best Dropshipping guide in existence.

Fashion Branding Secrets from 14 Industry Experts

How to Get Your Business Finances in Order Ahead of the Holiday Rush

7 Easy Ways You Probably Didn’t Think of to Boost Holiday Revenue

20. Volusion

Volusion’s ecommerce blog, The Ecommerce Authority, includes webinars and even predictions of their own, most of which are unerringly accurate. P.S- They’re predicting a 9% online growth for small-to-medium businesses this coming holiday season.

Growing a Fashion Business – Webinar Q&A – Ecommerce Insights Blog

Jazz Up Your Pinterest Profile with Rich Pins for Your Products

21. 2X ecommerce

The 2X eCommerce blog is dedicated to growing and scaling online retail businesses – they talk about improving average order value, retention and traffic.

Yacht Harbour: Organic Instagram Growth, 0 to 42K followers in 12 months

22. Nosto

This unique site has tips and tricks you can use to show improvements in your business within a short period of time. Ideal for new store online owners.

10 Just Really Great Ecommerce Pop-Ups

How one multi-brand fashion store is carving out the route to success

Size matters! … In pricing. Here’s how to use it.

Just this morning, we shared news across our social media pages (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook) that our flagship website retargeting product, VRM or Visitor Relationship Management has been renamed to Vizury WebConvert.

This rebranding was a part of a larger corporate initiative within Vizury. Our long term vision of being a product firm with a multichannel suite of personalized marketing solutions is taking shape rapidly now. Our Engineering Stables have already churned two new products out of beta (more about them soon).

With a rapidly increasing product portfolio, we wanted to create a product naming mantra that would reflect the channel where the product operated as well as the stage of an online consumer’s purchase lifecycle where it acted. All Vizurians contributed ideas for the new brand name and identity over a period of one month. From these ideas the final name took shape:

WebConvert = ‘Web’ for website + ‘Convert’ for the final conversion to a customer (through retargeting).

So please welcome our new look product Vizury WebConvert along with its mnemonic – a geometrical merging of two arrows, representing the nature of retargeting.

For more details on WebConvert:

• Read the product page on our new website
• Download the product collateral (PDF)
• Contact the WebConvert team

Wishing everyone a happy Friday and a great weekend!

It’s that time of the year when we take stock of what went by and anticipate what’s to come in the next year. And while you get busy with your marketing plan for Q1, here are 5 unbeatable Ecommerce marketing strategies that will help you grow loyal customers and stay ahead of competition all through 2017.

1) Hyper-personalized content: Personalization is not new to E-Commerce marketers. In fact, the last couple of years have seen an increased inclination among digital marketers to use personalization while trying to win customers. But during 2017 improving customer experience, simplifying interactions and enhancing brand relevance will become critical and hyper-personalized marketing will shift to a whole new level. Use Artificial Intelligence to build customer engagements, fine-tune recommendations, dynamic creatives. With hyper-personalized messages humanize brand – customer interactions and build an emotional connect.

2) Explore new online marketing channels: Marketers will leave no stone unturned or rather no channel untried in 2017. But there’s going to be a shift in the way marketers choose engagement channels this year. Emphasis will be on channels that allow rich user experience and also empower users to pick and choose whom they subscribe to hear from. From tried and tested emails to opt-in based push notifications sent from mobiles, explore channels that help you build engagements effectively while achieving their ROI goals. Use new channels like Browser Push Notifications to offer a mobile-like brand experience for website users as well.

3) User life cycle based triggers make their way in, blanket messaging on its way out:

2017 will see online brands strengthening their customer engagement strategies. This will include introducing life cycle based marketing engagements. Behavioral intelligence will be used to detect a user’s stage in the purchase cycle and communication will be triggered to influence him to move forward in the buying cycle. Instances like product page drop off, category page drop off, x days of inactivity, price drop alerts etc will be critical trigger points. Focus on mapping the stages of customer lifecycle and executing 1:1 marketing campaigns to grow conversions and loyalty.

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4) Voice of the customer to be used to improve experience in real-time: As the number of channels available to customers keep growing, brands will focus on converting more and more touch-points across the journey into listening posts. Unifying customer data across touch-points and using the captured information to improve accuracy and also update customer journey in real-time are something that your brand must get ready for.

5) As mobile grows stronger cross channel sync becomes critical: Cross-channel sync is going to be important for your brand this year for 2 reasons. Mobile grows stronger as a sales channel but desktop stays. Which means your customers are going to be more and more cross-device. And second, your customers expect personalized and relevant brand engagements that simplifies their online shopping experience. So while they continue to flit from one device to another, they expect a seamless and uninterrupted conversation with your brand. Your recommendations and offers must be unified across ads, emails, notifications, call center and any other touch point that the customer chooses to connect with you.

It’s all about the customer, it’s always been this way. And as your audience begins to scatter across channels and devices, it calls for a close-knit cross-channel marketing recipe with all the right ingredients  – a whole lot of mobile, a pinch of personalization, some new channels to get that new flavour and most importantly an engaging marketing strategy that is able to connect with humans. Go ahead and win some more hearts this year, have an awesome 2017.