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Category: MarketingAI

MarketingAI

  • Salesforce Wants to Buy MuleSoft, $6.5 Billion Offered for Acquisition

    Salesforce Wants to Buy MuleSoft, $6.5 Billion Offered for Acquisition

    In today’s ultra-competitive business environment where customer satisfaction is key to success, every company needs to have a proper Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy in place to stay ahead of the competition. This explains why the services of CRM-focused cloud computing companies such as the San Francisco-based Salesforce is in demand as they help other businesses polish their brand’s image while tapping into the full potential of their existing clientele.

    But even CRM experts must evolve with the changing times to stay on top of the game, and this sometimes includes the plain old mergers and acquisitions route. Recently, Salesforce announced that it is willing to shell out some serious cash to buy API expert MuleSoft.

    The deal is valued at a whopping $6.5 billion, which is expected to be finalized by July this year. At $44.89 per MuleSoft share, Salesforce is even willing to pay 36 percent on top of the current market price to sweeten the deal. However, it won’t be a pure cash transaction; Salesforce will pay $36 in cash as well as 0.0711 of its shares for every MuleSoft share.

    Given the multitude of applications available to businesses, MuleSoft makes it easier for companies to connect, utilize and make sense of the jumble of data generated by their horde of apps and devices. The company is an industry leader in terms of integrating different APIs, making them work seamlessly in any cloud-based platform. Obviously, the company’s technical expertise is invaluable for Salesforce’s CRM and marketing services.

    Aside from tech, the deal will also bring MuleSoft’s clientele within Salesforce’s reach. As an industry leader in cloud integration, Mulesoft runs a globe-spanning operation with around 1,200 clients across 60 countries, which includes Fortune 500 firms such as Coca-Cola, VMware, GE, Accenture, Airbus, AT&T, and Cisco.

    The deal is ultimately geared toward improving Salesforce’s bottom line and, hopefully, help the CRM giant meet its rather ambitious revenue target. The company aims to increase its annual revenue to $60 billion by 2034. While MuleSoft only posted $300 million for its 2017 sales, Salesforce could tap into its tech expertise to improve its service and further boost its future revenue.

    [Featured image via Salesforce]

  • Salesforce Acquires CloudCraze, a B2B eCommerce Software Startup

    Salesforce Acquires CloudCraze, a B2B eCommerce Software Startup

    Salesforce has added another tool to their CRM applications with its upcoming acquisition of CloudCraze, a Chicago-based eCommerce platform.

    The news was announced on Monday by CloudCraze. While the terms of the deal with Salesforce was not disclosed, it was revealed that the two companies had already signed an agreement.

    CloudCraze president Ray Grady pointed out in the company’s announcement that the B2B industry is slated to grow to $1.2 trillion and that it’s crucial for businesses to grab this opportunity. He also added that “the addition of CloudCraze to the Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Salesforce and its customers can now take advantage of this shift to digital commerce, enabling business buyers to browse and purchase online as easily as consumers shop today.”

    The deal between the two companies is not surprising considering how intertwined CloudCraze and Salesforce are.  Salesforce built its B2B software on CloudCraze’s platform and its investment division also supported CloudCraze’s $20 million round in 2017. Insight Venture Partners also backed the Chicago startup during its latest funding run.

    Last year’s investor round gave CloudCraze the needed capital to scale its business and expand its team. The company’s software helps businesses produce online revenue and remain connected to their customers effortlessly. Companies that use the platform can instantly see all the relevant customer data and quickly share it across various channels. Companies like Coca-Cola, GE, Kellogg’s, and L’Oreal are all using CloudCraze.

    This is far from the first startup that Salesforce bought. About two years ago, the company purchased Demandware. It also absorbed Chicago startups Gravitytank AKTA, InStranet, and Model Metrics. The company also acquired SteelBrick in 2015 for $300 million.

    CloudCraze will be Salesforce’s second acquisition for the year, after taking a break from buying startups in 2017. The company acquired Attic Labs in January. It’s still unknown if Salesforce will be going on a buying spree again this year, although the company has been very open about its new revenue goals. Acquiring fast-growing startups is one sure way to hit their mark.

    [Featured image via Salesforce APAC YouTube]

  • Salesforce Improves Einstein Analytics to Make it Easier for Customers to Extract Data

    Salesforce Improves Einstein Analytics to Make it Easier for Customers to Extract Data

    A lot of people find it challenging to use the different analytics tools at their disposal. But Salesforce hopes to change all that by making it possible for businesses to extract data by using conventional conversational language.

    Salesforce has been developing and filling artificial-intelligence features into its system so that users will be able to utilize their marketing and sales data to the fullest. The company introduced Einstein Analytics in June 2017. Now it has made improvements that allow the service to accept natural-language inquiries, thereby making it easier to use.

    Dubbed “Conversational Queries,” the feature recognizes popular phrases the user is typing and provides an automated method to develop queries and access data. For instance, a sales executive can type “show top accounts by yearly profit” into the Salesforce dashboard and it will immediately generate a report. Marketers previously had to set up the parameters and fields to get the data they need. Now Einstein Analytics can even suggest possible search terms to use, as well as the correct output vehicle, like a graph or a map.

    Technical users have used similar tools effectively for building queries, but it does require extensive knowledge on how to extract the data you need and fashion it into a specific query. By simplifying the system and using plain language to make queries, more people can access key analytics.

    According to VP of Product for Einstein Analytics Amruta Moktali, “Conversational Queries offers a new way to explore data and get answers to questions faster, eliminating clicks and the training required to create and drill down into charts.”

    There’s no question that enterprise tech is focusing on improving AI and machine-learning but for certain services, like customer-relationship management, ensuring that people can use the technology without having to hire a data scientist or going back to school is more critical.

    Salesforce’s Einstein Analytics is currently available in beta.

    [Featured image via Salesforce]

  • Salesforce Offers New AI Features to Small Businesses

    Salesforce Offers New AI Features to Small Businesses

    Most Corporations have the advantage of unlimited access to all the features a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform offers. Now small businesses can also enjoy this perk as well.

    During Salesforce’s yearly Dreamforce conference, the company announced that one of their best performing CRM platforms – the Sales Cloud Lightning Essentials – will be available to all. With this, small businesses will enjoy the same access to features that large enterprises use to grow rapidly and work quicker and smarter. Small companies will also have access to Salesforce’s newest innovations, like Einstein AI, Lightning, and Trailhead.

    Essentials Meet the Demands of Small Business

    Salesforce knows that to be able to cope with the demands of today’s competitive marketplaces, businesses should be able to easily integrate new technology into their day-to-day operations. This need is underlined by the revelation that 66% of small company heads are handling two or more departments. Meanwhile, only 26% of small businesses have an in-house IT department while the rest either deal with contractors or try to work out IT problems on their own.

    Salesforce Essentials can go a long way in easing this burden, as the platform was designed for simplicity and functionality. Small business analyst, Brent Leary, explained that small companies need guidance and a user-friendly platform, especially if they’re new to CRM. Essentials’ simple interface does meet that requirement, with the Trailhead feature providing the necessary assistance needed to develop leads faster and see results more quickly.

    New AI Features Great for Small Business

    The three key features added to the Sales Cloud Lightning Essentials will definitely make a difference to small businesses.

    Trailhead is an interactive, online learning platform that assists users in its implementation. It also gives guidance on topics like how to implement innovation and raise business knowledge.

    Meanwhile, Einstein is showing small businesses the practical aspects of artificial intelligence. In an interview, Salesforce’s Senior Product Director of Marketing, Eric Bernsley, explained that while most have a lot of questions about AI, they don’t want big, vague concepts. They want to see how AI can help businesses get more done.

    Entrepreneurs and small business owners know that manually inputting data is time-consuming and leaves little time for a company to identify or pursue new opportunities. But with Einstein, basic sales activities can be automated or records kept up-to-date. It can also help with predictive lead scoring or look at areas connected to possible leads.

    Since Essentials is built on Salesforce’s Lightning framework, small businesses will be able to enjoy a smooth transition of their workflow on any device due to the system’s intuitive design. And when Essentials is combined with other Salesforce Apps, small businesses can eventually manage their whole sales conversation – accounts, leads to contacts – on any device, whether from the office or out in the field.

    More importantly, all of Essentials’ features are scalable, meaning they’re flexible and can meet the CRM needs of any company, regardless of the size. And since Essentials is also built on a global platform, upgrading can be done anytime, something that will be beneficial to small companies.

    [Featured Image via Salesforce]

  • Email Marketing Trends to Watch Out for in 2018

    Email Marketing Trends to Watch Out for in 2018

    The number of email users have grown exponentially over the years, and there’s no sign that it will be stopping in 2018. Studies have shown that almost 90% of American consumers use email, and 65% or more have bought something online due to promotional emails.

    This means the future of marketing relies on data-boosted content marketing. If you want to keep up with your competitors, you should watch out for these email marketing trends that are expected to dominate next year.

    Increased Interactivity Inside EmailsImage result for email countdown timer

    Marketers forecast that emails will show increased interactivity in 2018, with the goal of making them fun to read so engagement rates are increased and bounce rates reduced.

    One of the best ways to do this is to enhance emails by including image galleries, quizzes, GIFs, countdown timers, and add-to-cart capabilities. Quizzes and GIFS will lead to increased customer footprints while countdown timers create a feeling of urgency that will push recipients to take action within a stipulated time-frame. Meanwhile, including an add-to-cart function will shorten shopping time and enhance brand experience.

    Email Marketing Programs Backed by Artificial Intelligence

    It’s a given that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology will be a big part of the future. As a matter of fact, numerous tech companies have already invested heavily in developing AI technology that will make lives easier. Email marketing is one area that will reportedly benefit from machine learning.

    It’s expected that machine learning programs can assist companies and email marketers by suggesting ways on how to better segment email lists, incorporate product recommendations and design more personalized emails that target specific customers.

    Rise of More Plain-Text Emails

    The trend of using HTML-powered email templates with images is over. Instead, 2018 will see the rise of plain-text emails. Researchers have found that this style of email is more effective than the HTML ones. Marketing campaigns using plain text emails have been found to have higher delivery and open rates, as well as better engagement numbers.

    Marketing specialists have theorized that plain text emails look the same across various gadgets and look more personal. Recipients don’t have to open a browser to read a plain-text email. They’re also easier to format for mobile devices.

    Mobile Becomes a Priority

    More than half of emails are opened on a mobile device, and 2018 is expected to be the year when emails will be designed with mobile formatting as a priority.

    Image result for how many people open emails on mobile device

    Graphic via superoffice.com

    Pretty soon, companies will be obligated to have a responsive design when it comes emails. This trend won’t be limited to emails though. Subscription forms will also become more mobile friendly while articles will start wrapping up their content with an email signup form to boost conversions.

    Increased Significance of Gmail and its Subscriber-Level Filtering

    Gmail is becoming the primary inbox provider for a lot of companies. Therefore, most customers on subscriber lists have a Gmail address. But due to Gmail’s system of filtering email, it becomes imperative for businesses to think about how it will be placed in the inbox.

    In order for marketers to optimize clicks, opens, and conversions, they have to pay more attention to who they are emailing and how they’re sending their email.Questions like whether the subscriber is actively receiving and interacting with the email and whether they have economic value should be answered. Likewise, the frequency of emails sent, the order, and even the time that they’re sent becomes more significant.

    However, the upcoming year will see more companies using more robust analytics to optimize results and foregoing conventional rules like not sending mail to those who haven’t clicked or opened an email in the past three months.

    The year 2018 will see more emails that are deeply personalized and utilizing advanced automation technologies. The integration of AI and machine learning will also help marketers to harness the power of email marketing and use it to further their business.

  • Blockchain: How Will it Impact Digital Marketing?

    Blockchain: How Will it Impact Digital Marketing?

    The marketing industry generates billions of dollars every year. After all, every company needs ads and various marketing strategies in order to reach their target consumers.

    Forrester, a leading market research company, even said that by 2021, digital marketing costs will reach $120 billion. Unfortunately, about half of ad traffic is created by bots. It’s a decidedly dishonest practice, especially when you consider how much money companies put out just to reach prospective clients. But this practice might soon come to an end once businesses have a greater capacity to focus on specific customers.

    Related image

    Graphic via Techspot.com

    It’s a good thing then that digital marketing is very dynamic and open to change. It easily adapts to new technology and the shifting perceptions of customers. At the moment, there’s one tech advancement that has the potential to change digital marketing (and the world) like never before – the blockchain.

    What is Blockchain?

    Blockchain might seem too technical for most people to fully grasp, but it’s a fairly simple concept. The technology is essentially a public ledger that stores and distributes data. More importantly, everyone that uses blockchain can see and share all its data and by doing so, each user plays a role in keeping it updated and transparent.

    The system works by keeping data stored in a chain-like pattern and the transaction history is stored in “blocks.” Information stored in a blockchain can only be added to. It can’t be changed or copied. If someone were to attempt to change the history or hack the system, the ledger would have to be updated on all the users’ computers. Considering the number of users in a blockchain, this would be almost impossible to do, making the service very secure.

    How Will it Impact Digital Marketing?

    Blockchain is often linked to cryptocurrency. It’s decentralized nature, the freedom it offers, and heightened cybersecurity features makes it perfect storage for virtual money. However, blockchain also has a major impact on digital marketing.

    It Will Take Out the Middleman

    There’s always a middleman in digital marketing which means businesses only get half the value of what they have paid. Blockchain can do away with these intermediaries and help create better value for marketing campaigns.

    Related image            Related image

    Graphic via Linkedin.com

    With a blockchain, companies can forego the ad buy process and just target their prospective customers directly by paying them to view the ads. Businesses can use “microcurrencies” that customers can avail of once they’ve proven that they have watched the ad. The Brave browser has already started this, using their Basic Attention Token (BAT) to ensure that companies only pay for the ads that have been viewed by a real person.

    Trust is Built With Transparency

    One concern that companies have with online advertising is that it’s virtually impossible to know if the stats provided are accurate. There’s no way to check if the counted site clicks or followers are real customers, or even real people, for that matter. After all, ad companies can hire “clickers” or use bots to boost ad stats so distributors can charge higher fees.

    Blockchain will definitely have a significant impact here. Since the system is encrypted and transparent, companies can easily check if those viewing their ads are part of their target audience or not.

    Improves Accountability

    There’s nothing more disheartening than spending your hard earned cash on a counterfeit product. Blockchain can lessen the odds of this happening by improving merchants’ accountability in every step of the supply chain.

    Blockchain’s vaunted digital ledger system enables transparency that cannot be tampered with. Customers can check details like where the product came from, if it’s legit or fake, whether it’s bought from a physical store or an online action. Simply put, blockchain empowers the customer and improves their buying experience.

    There’s no question that the idea behind blockchain is a powerful one. The technology has the potential to impact cryptocurrency, digital marketing, and customer experience. The system is still in its infancy but is expected to see significant growth in the coming year.  

  • Salesforce Has a New Partner, and Its Name is Google

    Salesforce Has a New Partner, and Its Name is Google

    Google and Salesforce have come to an agreement, one that will see the former’s G Suites productivity apps directly integrated with the latter’s CRM service. The impressive partnership between the two companies was one of the highlights of this year’s Dreamforce event.

    While the two companies have been associated with each other for more than a decade, the new arrangement will see Google Cloud becoming Saleforce’s prime choice of public cloud provider, as well as becoming its key cloud provider for the global expansion the company is said to be making.

    Not only will this partnership see the integration of Salesforce’s service with Google’s G Suite software, it will also give Salesforce’s clients a free G Suite subscription that will be good for a year. This means clients who run G Suite will have access and be able to share information from their accounts in Google Calendar, Gmail, Drive, Docs, and Hangouts. It will also feed data from the CRM platform’s Sales and Marketing Clouds into Google Analytics 360. It’s expected that Google Analytics 360 will already be embedded in Salesforce’s Sales and Marketing Clouds by the first six months of 2018.

    The alliance between Google and Salesforce will also see Quip being integrated as a live app in both Google Calendar and Drive. This will permit users to work in those apps inside a Quip document. The feature will be available to Quip license holders by the first half of 2018 as well.

    Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff described the partnership as a way for customers of both companies to have the best of both worlds. He explained that it will make it easier for companies to manage their business in the cloud, whether its analytics and emails, sales, service and marketing apps, and even productivity apps. Benioff also promised that the deal between Salesforce and Google will assist in making clients work smarter and become more productive.

    The integration of Salesforce’s data into the Calendar, Drive, and Gmail has already commenced, and other integrations are set to be released next year. What’s more, the tie-up with analytics is reportedly scheduled to be rolled out next year and will be offered for free.

    Salesforce and Google do not have time to rest on their laurels though, as Microsoft has been determinedly targeting the two companies’ services through the Azure and Office 365 platforms. Luckily, Google and Salesforce’s new alliance means that they have their own means to counter Microsoft’s prime selling points.

    [Featured image via Salesforce]

  • Alibaba’s Cloud Revenue Skyrockets, Company Aims to Surpass Amazon and Microsoft

    Alibaba’s Cloud Revenue Skyrockets, Company Aims to Surpass Amazon and Microsoft

    Alibaba is nipping at the heels of top cloud companies Amazon and Microsoft. While the two still reign supreme in terms of revenue, the Chinese company leads the pack in terms of growth as Alibaba’s cloud revenue more than doubled in 2016.

    According to market research firm Gartner, Amazon Web Service (AWS) profits rose 45.9% in 2016, raking in about $9.8 billion from the previous year’s $6.7 billion while Microsoft’s Azure grew 61.1% and saw revenues of $1.6 billion from $980 million. Meanwhile, Alibaba’s cloud sales rocketed to 126.5%. That means Jack Ma’s company raked in $675 million in 2016, more than doubling its $298 million profit in 2015.

    Google follows Alibaba on the list and also saw their revenues doubled from $250 million to $500 million. Rackspace comes in at fifth with a revenue surge of 2.2%.

    Image result for alibaba 2017 iaas market share

    Gartner’s study focused on one key cloud computing segment – infrastructure-as-a-service or IaaS. This segment is comprised of data storage, basic computing and networking services that businesses can rent as required. It should be emphasized that cloud-based business programs like Salesforce are not included with IaaS.

    The IaaS market is growing by leaps and bounds. It generated $22.1 billion in 2016, an impressive leap from the previous year’s $16.8 billion.

    Cloud framework is a rising consideration among businesses, including Fortune 500 companies. Most are evaluating whether it’s better to utilize offsite cloud data facilities to run business software instead of running or expanding their own data centers.

    The Gartner research also revealed that the total market for IaaS service rose 31% in 2016, with profits rising to $22.1 billion from 2015’s $16.8 billion. It comes as no surprise that Amazon has a big slice of the market at 44%, while Microsoft has 7.1% and Alibaba accounts for just 3%.

    However, that might all change. For while Alibaba is a powerful entity in China, the company’s Aliyun cloud service is already flexing its muscles in North America and other markets like Australia, Germany, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. The addition of new data centers in these countries will solidify Alibaba’s position outside its home country in the years to come.

    The research firm also posited that Amazon’s growth will be curtailed or the company might even see its market share going down because of the intense competition the company is facing from Azure, Google and Alibaba. Aside from these companies growing, the non-hyperscale providers will also be looking for ways to add more value to their services.

    It’s clear though that Alibaba is really gunning to surpass Amazon’s AWS sector and become the top supplier of cloud services. At least, that’s the impression that Simon Hu, the president of Alibaba Cloud, gave during the company’s Computing Conference in Hangzhou.

    The South China Morning Post reported that Hu acknowledged that they have used Amazon as a benchmark and that Alibaba now has products that surpassed their rival’s. Hu also expressed confidence that Alibaba Cloud’s technical capabilities are at par with AWS.

    Other factors working in Alibaba’s favor are China’s booming internet economy and the country’s massive internet population. These are things the company knows is responsible for the opportunity it now has to push past its competitors.

    While it’s clear that Alibaba will continue to push for dominance, some sectors are undoubtedly wondering about IBM’s performance. The renowned company is glaringly absent from the top companies in the Gartner research.

    However, the research firm explains this omission is due to the majority of IBM’s offers falling into the software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) category, a market where it actually has a high ranking. IBM’s lack of IaaS provisions also means its cloud service will grow at a more sedate pace as IaaS is expected to zoom past whatever growth SaaS and PaaS will develop in the next five years.

    [Featured image via YouTube]

  • Don’t Overlook Voice Search in Your Online Marketing Campaign

    Don’t Overlook Voice Search in Your Online Marketing Campaign

    The popularity of voice-activated smart assistants is gaining traction, especially with Apple hopping on the bandwagon with its Siri speaker due to be released soon. This is why businesses should include voice search in their online marketing campaign, rather than focus solely on text-based searches.

    In fact, voice search marketing is described as the new norm, which would have been unheard of just five years ago. One major factor is the increasing efficiency of machine-learning technology in finding user patterns to anticipate their needs.

    For instance, Amazon’s Alexa is billed to be capable of performing over 12,000 tasks, which is why it’s still the undisputed king in this increasingly competitive industry.

    A Different Beast

    In the past six months, 40% of mobile users have tried voice commands in asking questions or searching for products and services. Analysts believe this number will only continue to rise until such time when people won’t even be able to imagine how they survived without voice-activated apps in the first place, similar to how they feel about mobile phones today.

    When it reaches this critical mass, Google will surely introduce an update to its algorithm that will take into account voice search in order to rank your page.

    Voice search use among smartphone users in the U.S., as of October 2015*

    For marketers, this would be an entirely different beast altogether. Whereas text-related keyword searches are much easier to document, recording how many people are looking for “best pulled pork sandwiches, Lexington, KY” using voice search will be a tall feat.

    This will really turn the search engine optimization dynamic—which is the direct result of years of honing and polishing—up on its head.

    Better Results

    Unlike text queries, voice search will yield more accurate results. It basically pulls down the curtains, allowing internet users to skip one step. Instead of searching for “pulled pork sandwiches,” they can just go ahead and order the food from the best restaurant based on customer and critic reviews.

    Instead of searching for a particular song you can’t get out of your head, it may be possible in the future to hum the lyrics and the smart speaker will play the whole song for you. This brings convenience to a whole new level, unlike in text searches where you have to choose and phrase your words in a specific manner to get the most relevant results—and still having to go to that particular website to order food.

    Here are some quick tips to cope with the changes from text to voice search marketing:

    Mobile Optimization –  As voice search apps are gradually perfected, mobile optimization will become even more crucial. Website built with Flash will need to be redesigned and all websites will need to be responsive. Marketers will need to advise their clients of this major shift from traditional search to voice search. Another way to optimize the mobile experience is to make sure that their sites load fast. There’s no faster way to lose customers than a website that takes forever to display.

    Snippets – In voice searches, snippets are short descriptions about the company or the brand. This gives the users a little bit of information before they move along or move forward. Using traditional SEO techniques, you will need to optimize so you end up high on the search engine results page for snippets.

    Long-Tail Keywords – Voice search is different from text search in the sense that internet users will often talk normally as they would in a conversation, as opposed to using key phrases or keywords when they type on Google. This is where long-tail keywords are crucial because you can still reach your target market even with this major shift in the way people do their search.  

  • 5 Ways Data Visualization Benefits Your Business in 2017

    5 Ways Data Visualization Benefits Your Business in 2017

    The challenge for businesses is how to interpret and break down big data in a manner that is easily understandable not just from top to bottom of the organization, but also for their clients as well. This is where data visualization comes in.

    The internet—or at least Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon—hold about 1,200 petabytes, or about 1.2 million terabytes, of data. There is no way human beings can process this amount of information without breaking them up into cute visual presentations that will explain the small and big picture.

    There are actually data visualization software apps available on the market today that automatically interpret, find patterns, cross-match results, and provide context. This gives businesses a macro and micro view of the situation so they can make changes accordingly.

    Below are some of the benefits of employing data visualization for your organization:

    1. Optimizes Performance

    People process information more quickly through visual presentation. All of your sales, performance benchmarks, and analytics can be arranged in interactive maps, which can easily be interpreted even by your customers.

    This is certainly better than giving your rank and file a thick book with a ton of numbers in Word or Excel format. These software applications have the capability to pinpoint weaknesses in the workflow that may affect day-to-day operations. Client demographic and marketing statistics are laid out in easy-to-understand graph, chart, cartogram, geospatial, or histogram format. Using these visuals, you can easily determine dips and highs in your performance over the past weeks, months, or even years.

    2. More Comprehensive Report

    Since the dawn of time, civilization has processed its environment through the senses, particularly the eyes. Presenting relevant company data through data visualization will give everybody a more comprehensive picture of the company’s present situation against its goals. It also prevents redundant tasks, as personnel can immediately see if a specific task has already been accomplished or not.

    Some companies even allow those in the frontlines to make changes in the data based on the information they cull from the field. This includes updating old data, correcting erroneous stat, and others.

    3. You Can Optimize the Potential of Visual Learners

    The University of Alabama in Birmingham says more than six out of 10 people in the U.S. are considered visual learners. It has been proven in studies that people have different learning styles. Some people learn better while listening, others perform better through reading, while a majority prefer to see data in the form of visuals. With over half of the population being visual learners, the only way to optimize their capabilities is through data visualization.

    4. Communicates Core Message Better

    Among the videos that went viral in 2016 were commercial ads from Nike, Samsung, and Shell. This underscores the importance of visuals for companies to drive home a point. The use of data visualization will only see more positive changes in the years to come. Blue chip corporations already have their entire IT department devoted to making use of the technological advancements to promote the brand through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Snapchat.

    5. Real-Time Updating of Data

    Unlike weekly, monthly, or quarterly business reports, data visualization software allows synchronization of your data with real-time updates. You no longer have to base your decision on old metrics when new numbers are constantly coming in. For instance, if your office in Seattle is struggling, you can immediately study whatever statistics are at your disposal to find the reason why. You can implement solutions immediately and address the problem before it becomes worse.  

  • Microsoft and LinkedIn Ready to Challenge Salesforce CRM

    Microsoft and LinkedIn Ready to Challenge Salesforce CRM

    Since Microsoft’s $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn three days after Christmas 2016, little has been heard from what would be Microsoft Dynamic’s bold upgrade to the CRM industry. But the picture has become much more clear since Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently gave Reuters the details of upgrades to its sales software that integrates data from LinkedIn.

    As Reuters describes: The new features will comb through a salesperson’s email, calendar and LinkedIn relationships to help gauge how warm their relationship is with a potential customer. The system will recommend ways to save an at-risk deal, like calling in a co-worker who is connected to the potential customer on LinkedIn.

    The enhancements, which will be available this summer, will require Microsoft Dynamics customers to also be LinkedIn customers.

    Microsoft is a small player in sales software. According to research firm Gartner, the company ranks fourth – far behind Salesforce.com and other rivals Oracle Corp and SAP – with just 4.3% of the market in 2015, the most recent year for which figures are available.

    Nadella, long known as a champion for the democratization of artificial intelligence (AI), said it would be a key component to Dynamics: “I want to be able to democratize AI so that any customer using these products is able to, in fact, take their own data and load it into AI for themselves.”

    Microsoft’s “third cloud” is Nadella’s term for Dynamics which caters to the fields such as sales and finance. With Office 365 (work productivity and flow, email, etc.) and Azure (computing and databases) as the first two clouds, Nadella all Microsoft products utilizing a common set of business data that can be mined for new insights with artificial intelligence

    “I think that’s the only way to long-term change this game, because if all we did was replace somebody else’s (sales), or (finance) application, that’s of no value, quite frankly,” he told Reuters.

    With this news, it’s no surprise that Linked also announced both a new ad targeting platform (Matched Audiences) and that LinkedIn now has 500 million users.

  • Einstein and Watson Team Up

    Einstein and Watson Team Up

    IBM and Salesforce announced a strategic partnership on Monday that brings insights from IBM’s Watson AI into Salesforce Intelligent Customer Success Platform.

    Integrating IBM Watson APIs will add a new level of AI to Salesforce’s Einstein to offer more insights for sales, service, marketing, commerce and more.

    Retailers, for example, could use Watson’s retail industry data, local shopping patterns, and weather combined with customer specific shopping data from Salesforce to deliver highly targeted, personalized email campaigns.

    Ginni Rometty, chairman, president and chief executive officer, IBM. “This year we expect Watson will touch one billion people—through everything from oncology and retail to tax preparation and cars. Now, with today’s announcement, the power of Watson will serve the millions of Salesforce and Einstein customers and developers to provide an unprecedented understanding of customers.”

    “The combination of Einstein and Watson will make businesses smarter and our customers more successful,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, Salesforce. “I’m thrilled to form an alliance with IBM—no company’s core values are as close to Salesforce’s as IBM’s. It’s the best of both worlds.”

    The first part of the offering, IBM Application Integration Suite will be available by the end of the month. The Watson, Einstein Integration is planned for the second half of 2017.

  • What is CRM? Salesforce Provides Small Businesses with a Simple Explanation

    What is CRM? Salesforce Provides Small Businesses with a Simple Explanation

    Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, often gets small business owners eyes rolling. Saleforce recently created a simple, yet effective, video answer to that question targeted toward small businesses.

    What is CRM?

    Salesforce explains to small business why CRM is important to them. The video is a little cheesy but helpful as a CRM intro to small business owners who find the concept daunting:

    “You are in a business that some call small business, wearer of many hats, blazer of new business trails, it’s anything but small. It’s everything, not the least of which is finding, winning and keeping customers in a world where you’re expected to keep up like a bigger business.”

    “But how do you do all that? Welcome to Customer Relationship Management, CRM for short. It does all the things you already do to keep track of customers, only easier. It starts when you take what you know about your customers, name, phone, job title, company and put it in a place that makes it easy for everyone in your company to use, share and take action from.”

    “It’s so everyone understands every interaction from calls, emails and meeting notes to quotes and closing deals. You can even see what your amazing sales revenue look like at a glance. It’s the kind of info that lets service be quicker, more informed and more personal with customers and lets marketing capture leads and follow up with smarter and better email campaigns to bring customers in.”

    “It’s one place that allows everyone to work together seamlessly from anywhere, right in the palm of your hand. There is no need for sticky notes or staring at spreadsheets so no one is ever in the dark about what’s going on, especially you.”

    “CRM… in a nutshell, it’s the everything helper, from people who need to do everything to make business grow bigger.”

  • Salesforce Einstein Announced–Artificial Intelligence for Everyone

    Salesforce Einstein Announced–Artificial Intelligence for Everyone

    In a major initiative that has been in the works for two years, Salesforce is integrating artificial intelligence into all of its CRM cloud platforms. It enables any business to use clicks or code to build AI-powered apps that get smarter with every interaction. Their AI system learns from all of the data you enter about your customers and prospects (CRM data, email, calendar, social, ERP, and IoT), and makes predictions and recommendations on actions you should consider. It can even automate tasks it certain situations.

    Salesforce Einstein is designed to help their customers take advantage of the huge amounts of data produced by making sense of it and seeing trends before humans typically do. What Salesforce has done is to make the use of artificial intelligence possible for all businesses, without have to employ their own data science teams.

    “Powered by advanced machine learning, deep learning, predictive analytics, natural language processing and smart data discovery, Einstein’s models will be automatically customized for every single customer, and it will learn, self-tune, and get smarter with every interaction and additional piece of data,” writes Jim Sinai who is VP of Marketing at SalesforceIQ in their company blog announcement. “Most importantly, Einstein’s intelligence will be embedded within the context of business, automatically discovering relevant insights, predicting future behavior, proactively recommending best next actions and even automating tasks.”

    Salesforce Einstein is designed to be a simple and intuitive approach to deliver AI to companies using their cloud CRM products. They say that by “removing the complexity of AI” they are “enabling any company to deliver smarter, personalized and more predictive customer experiences.”

    “We couldn’t be more excited to finally unveil Salesforce Einstein after two years of hard work and targeted acquisitions,” added Sinai. “As we continue to build out AI for CRM, we are committed to understanding the next generation of AI technology and how it can best be applied to Salesforce. This effort will be led by Salesforce Research, a new research group focused on the future of AI, under the leadership of Dr. Richard Socher, our Chief Scientist.”

    Bringing Artificial Intelligence to Sales

    Adam Blitzer, the EVP & GM of Sales Cloud at Salesforce sees significant value in companies using AI within the sales process. “At Salesforce, we are focused on helping companies evolve from the first level, where the CRM is a one-dimensional system of record, to the second level, where the CRM is a system of engagement. And finally, we are helping companies make the leap to the highest level, where the CRM works for them as a predictive system of intelligence.”

    “AI arms teams with more intelligence, enabling them increase productivity and predictive capabilities across everything they do,” adds Blitzer. “Importantly, it gives sales teams better insights that build human relationships, an area where sales reps far excel beyond machine capabilities.”

    Screen Shot 2016-09-19 at 11.20.25 AM

    “This (Sales Cloud Einstein) makes people, teams and entire companies, better able to discover insights from data, recommend actions that help close deals, automate processes that give reps more time to build 1:1 relationships, and predict outcomes or hiccups that enable reps to be proactive and remain a step ahead of each customer’s needs and competitor’s potential attack,” stated Blitzer. “I’m excited for our customers to start experimenting with the features we’re announcing today—Predictive Lead Scoring, Opportunity Insights and Automated Activity Capture, you can learn more here. And, I’m even more excited about the business growth these AI solutions are going to drive.”

    Bringing Artificial Intelligence to the Service Industry

    “Until now, most customer service leaders have been unable to put intelligence in action,” stated Mike Milburn who is head of the Service Cloud at Salesforce. “With Service Cloud Einstein, companies of any size will be able to deploy a connected customer service experience that is predictive, automated and intelligent, bringing AI to the forefront of customer service like never before.”

    Milburn says that with Service Cloud Einstein, organizations of all sizes will be able to resolve customer service cases faster by utilizing history and trend data, automate routine inquiries and predict case resolution times.

    He also offered a bigger picture of how the Salesforce Cloud Platform could be integrated within devices far removed from CRM and marketing. “Consider this: a connected device–like a dishwasher–could self-diagnose that it needed routine maintenance from a field tech. The dishwasher is connected to Salesforce IoT Cloud, where it’s performance is monitored. When IoT Cloud identifies an issue, it triggers a case in Field Service Lightning and a dishwasher repair tech is dispatched automatically–without a customer or agent needing to be involved. That’s the future of service, and the amazing thing is that with Einstein and the Customer Success Platform, it’s possible today.”

    Bringing Artificial Intelligence to Marketing

    AI in marketing is about combining historical and real-time data in order to see trends, predict what’s likely to happen and offer contextual suggestions on what to do next. “We are giving marketers the ability to shift away from using analytics that only look at past behavior to analytics that predict the optimal timing, channel, content and audience for any marketing message,” says Bob Stutz, CEO of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud and their Chief Analytics Officer.

    Einstein integration within their marketing cloud enables companies to take advantage of Predictive Scoring which puts a percentage on the likelihood of a customer taking a certain action such as making a purchase, or unsubscribing from an email blast. With the Predictive Audiences feature marketers can group predictive actions based on their scores in order to more effectively modify marketing strategies. Finally, Automated Send-time Optimization predicts the best time to send new marketing messages.

    Screen Shot 2016-09-19 at 11.45.34 AM

    Stutz says that Marketing Cloud Einstein has been in beta for about a year with “tremendous” results. He says that ecommerce and coupons company ShopAtHome redefined customer engagement around predictive scores and experienced a 23% increase in email clicks, and a 30% increase in email opens.

    Bringing Artificial Intelligence to the Entire Salesforce Platform

    Salesforce has also added Einstein AI to their Community Cloud, IoT Cloud and App Cloud.

    “What is most important to Salesforce Community Cloud customers is that Einstein’s intelligence will automatically discover and surface relevant insights, predict answers to solve questions fast, and proactively make recommendations,” said Mike Micucci who is the SVP of Product Management at Salesforce. “It will even automate certain tasks. And you don’t have to do a thing. Einstein puts the best alternative right in front of you.”

    “With IoT Cloud Einstein, our customers will be able to unlock a whole new wave of innovation for the Internet of Things by pairing their IoT data with services powered by Salesforce’s new artificial intelligence platform,” notes Woodson Martin, the head of Thunder & IOT Cloud at Salesforce.

    Salesforce is also making it possible for companies to build custom apps using their Einstein AI technology. “Today, as we launch Salesforce Einstein, we’re democratizing the technology necessary for any business to build AI-first apps,” said Adam Seligman, Executive Vice President and GM of the App Cloud at Salesforce. “Einstein combines all of our adventurous reaches into data science, data management and modern app development into one set of platform services enabling anyone to build the next generation of apps, powered by AI, that customers will love.”

  • Email Marketing is Alive and Well for Brands

    Email Marketing is Alive and Well for Brands

    Email marketing is alive and well for brands. Over 60% of marketers are planning to use email marketing as their primary method of gaining new business, according to a new survey by Campaigner.

    The power of first impressions should not be something that online retail marketers should overlook. This new survey illustrates the importance of a marketers first email message, right after someone provides their email to a brand.

    The survey revealed that 39% of marketers send a thank-you-for-subscribing message and 50% of those companies say that 21% of their new subscribers engage with their welcome emails. That’s quite the engagement rate and is reflective of the fact that marketers typically offer enticement deals in these emails such as free shipping, free items with purchase, extra percents off for new customers, etc. These offers almost always are only available for a limited amount of time and are offered on first purchase only. Frequent online shoppers know that providing their email will result in these deals so they are accustomed to subscribing before purchase.

    “It takes just seconds within meeting someone to form a lasting impression,” said EJ McGowan, general manager, Campaigner. “Unsurprisingly, first impressions for brands are just as critical and time-sensitive. Marketers who quickly deliver engaging welcome emails to new subscribers will see greater success in conversions, while also building brand reputation.”

    Of brands surveyed, 55% offered news and content and their main incentive to entice subscriptions while 49% offered promotions.

    It’s also important for brands to send a timely welcome message after a new subscription with 62% reporting they send their welcome emails within 24 hours. In my experience most major brands send their welcome emails immediately while the potential shopper is actively engaged with the brand. It is absolutely a horrible idea to wait as long as 24 hours, so I suspect the survey didn’t offer shorter response times as options. As I indicated above, it is an extremely effective sales strategy to send a welcome email with true and exclusive deals just for the new shopper, but it is also very important to send those while your customer is thinking about you and likely still on your website, in order to maximize their likelihood of becoming a customer.

    In general, the survey found that it’s best for retail marketers to send their emails before 2 p.m. and 35% say that between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. is ideal in order to generated the best response. Only 25% said that between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. is best. Again, the welcome email should be sent immediately following the subscription, even if it is 3 a.m., or you risk losing a hot prospective customer to your 24 hours a day online retail business.

    Interestingly, 60% of marketers reported that they aren’t doing everything they can do to make their welcome emails most effective. The survey asked questions as to what marketers are doing to improve results in their emails:

    • Eighty-seven percent of marketers are including images in their welcome emails, while 26 percent are including videos.
    • Nearly a third (31 percent) of marketers report that geo-targeting is important for initial emails to contacts.
    • Additionally, more than half of the marketers ranked personalization and segmentation as the most successful tactics in driving conversions.

    The survey shows that (unfortunately) even though email marketing is still a very powerful platform to gain new customers, it faces the challenge of the spam and clutter folders. Marketers reported that 47% of their emails to their own opt-in customers did not hit the inbox! Wake up Google and Outlook and other email platforms, when people subscribe to something they are expressly saying they WANT TO GET EMAIL, even if, and maybe especially if, they are sent offers and promotions.

    Give us your feedback on using email for marketing on the WebProNews Facebook page.

    Here’s the Infographic on this survey provided by Campaigner:

    beat-the-heat-v1

    Give us your feedback on using email for marketing on the WebProNews Facebook page.

  • Email Marketing Only Becoming Bigger Priority For Marketers

    Email Marketing Only Becoming Bigger Priority For Marketers

    Email on Acid recently released the results of a survey of 3,550 professionals (including marketers and developers) from last fall, looking at development, design, and marketing trends and behavior in email marketing. Based on this, email marketing is going to stay a top priority for businesses this year.

    The company found that 71.8% are planning to spend more time on email production while 86.7% intend to increase email marketing budgets in 2016. Of those who identified as marketers, 91.2% of them are willing to spend more time on email marketing in the coming year.

    The survey found that 69.1% spend between one and five hours developing a typical email campaign and that 30.6% plan to spend an additional 20+ hours per month on their email marketing programs. 23.5% will send an average of over 30 emails per month this year.

    86.7% of all respondents intend to spend more money on email marketing this year. 60.2% expect to increase budget on technology and tools, while 38.4% expect to do do on list growth. 37.7% intend to increase dollars on development, and 32.5% expect to spend more on design.

    “Responsive design is becoming increasingly popular, with 56.9 percent of survey respondents reporting to use responsive templates,” says Email on Acid’s Tanya Wheeler-Berliner. “Hybrid fluid design is less popular, with 7.9 percent saying they use templates coded with this technique and 19.9 percent saying they use both responsive and hybrid fluid design. Only 15.2 percent report to use neither coding method.”

    53% expect to use dynamic content elements in their campaigns in 2016. 45.8% expect to use merge tags for personalization. 26.6% intend to use CSS navigation, while 22.5% will use HTML5 video and 20% will use carousel hero images.

    “The survey revealed that a third of marketers believe strategy development (33.3 percent) will have the biggest impact on their email marketing program in 2016,” writes Wheeler-Berliner. “Additionally, improving email content and providing contextually relevant email experiences were cited almost equally by about one-third of all respondents as marketers’ number one goal. Finally-not surprisingly-coding for email was identified as a perennial pain point of the production process. Tools that can fix code for you was rated the top idea that would help the email creation process (39.8 percent), followed by a more streamlined testing system (24.6 percent) and better project management tools geared for email (22.3 percent).”

    Email on Acid put out this infographic highlighting the survey’s findings.

    file-page1

    You can find the full report here.

    Images via iStock, Email on Acid

  • Salesforce Acquires MetaMind To Add AI to Services

    Salesforce Acquires MetaMind To Add AI to Services

    Artificial intelligence startup MetaMind launched in late 2014 with $8 million in funding from Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff and Khosla Ventures. Now, Salesforce has has acquired it.

    Salesforce will integrate MetaMind’s technology into its services.

    “With MetaMind and Salesforce coming together, we’ll be able to offer customers real AI solutions with breakthrough capabilities that further automate and personalize customer support, marketing automation, and many other business processes,” says MetaMind co-founder and CEO Richard Socher. “We’ll extend Salesforce’s data science capabilities by embedding deep learning within the Salesforce platform.”

    “Over the past year and a half, we’ve been on a mission to empower business users with state of the art deep learning technology to simplify, improve and automate decision making,” he says. “And now, we’ll be able to continue our journey at Salesforce on a much larger scale, with the resources and ecosystem of one of the world’s most innovative and influential enterprise software companies.”

    While under Salesforce, MetaMind intends to continue its AI research. According to Socher, they’ll be publishing “groundbreaking discoveries” that advance the technology. They’re also hiring.

    MetaMind’s products will be discontinued on May 4 for unpaid web users with June 4 being the end date for recurring monthly users. The company says all user data will be deleted “promptly” after closing.

    Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

  • For ROI, Email Marketing Makes Big Leap Over Last Year

    For ROI, Email Marketing Makes Big Leap Over Last Year

    Salesforce released its 2016 State of Marketing Report, finding that marketers are seeing increased ROI with email, mobile, and social media marketing. The report is based on a survey of about 4,000 marketers from around the world.

    Of those who use email marketing, 80% agree it is core to their business. Nearly half of them say it’s directly linked to their business’ primary revenue source. That’s up 140% from last year’s report. 79% of marketers, according to this year’s, say email generates ROI, which is a 48% increase year-over-year.

    Salesforce Reports Email Data

    The report says that intelligent email is driving higher revenue.

    “As email personalization capabilities grow more sophisticated, the channel becomes even more integral for marketers to deliver a holistic customer journey,” it reads. “Eighty percent of marketers agree that email is core to their business.”

    “Predictive technology is breathing new life into established marketing channels such as email,” the report adds. “Top teams are 4.2x more likely than underperformers to leverage predictive intelligence or data science to create personalized emails.”

    Salesforce email data

    What’s interesting is the diversity in the types of campaigns found to be effective. Take a look:

    salesforce email data

    The high-performing marketers, Salesforce says, are 2.3x more likely to trigger personalized emails in real time based on events. The high performers in general take a “more sophisticated” approach to email, it says.

    sophisticated email marketing

    75% of marketers using social report that it’s generating ROI, which is a 166% increase from last year’s report. Unsurprisingly, Facebook is found to be the most effective social channel for high-performing teams. This is followed by Twitter, YouTube, Google+, and then Instagram. Considering that advertising on Instagram is in its early days, it’s likely it will gain significance if you ask me.

    In terms of mobile, adoption of location-based mobile tracking saw a 149% increase while mobile push notifications saw a 145% increase. Mobile text messaging adoption saw an 111% increase, and mobile app adoption saw a 98% increase. More importantly, 77% of those who use mobile as part of their marketing strategy say it actively generates ROI, up 147% from lat year’s report.

    The report found that 65% of high-performing marketers say they’ve adopted a customer journey strategy. 88% say such a strategy is critical to their marketing success.

    The study found that 58% of high-performing marketing teams strongly agree they’re implementing digital transformations across the company. This compares to just 8% of underperformers. 63% of the high-performers also say they’re excellent at creating personalized, omnichannel customer experiences across all business units. It’s just 2% for the underperformers.

    You can find the full 2016 State of Marketing Report here.

    All charts via Salesforce

  • Office 365 Connectors Now Available to All

    Office 365 Connectors Now Available to All

    Microsoft announced Office 365 Connectors in limited preview back in the fall, but is now opening the offering up to all customers.

    Connectors are available now, spanning services like MailChimp, Asana, GitHub, Stack Overflow, Aha, Zendesk, Salesforce, Twitter and UserVoice. There are over 50 connectors available now with more to come.

    “Office 365 Groups is a service that enables teams to come together and get work done by establishing a single team identity and a single set of permissions across Office 365 apps,” explains Microsoft in a blog post. “Setting up an Office 365 Group automatically creates a shared inbox, calendar, notebook and files. Now, any Groups member can add Office 365 Connectors for their group’s use, in seconds, to bring filtered information in the shared inbox that is relevant and contextual to the team’s needs and interests. For example, a product lead using the UserVoice connector can help her entire team track the latest feedback on a new product launched in market.”

    “Each time a key activity takes place in the service you’re tracking—for example, when a new task is added to a Salesforce opportunity, an update is made to a Trello board or an incident is triggered in PagerDuty—a message is sent to the Groups shared inbox,” it adds. “You can then choose to share and discuss on the message with your team or take action with a few simple clicks.”

    The company says it will bring Connectors to Outlook inbox for individual users in the future.

    You can peruse a list of frequently asked questions about Office 365 Connectors here.

    Image via Microsoft

  • Salesforce Launches Quotable Content Site For Salespeople

    Salesforce Launches Quotable Content Site For Salespeople

    This week, Salesforce announced the launch of Quotable, a new site with articles aimed at benefiting sales professionals of all types.

    According to the company, it will be full of helpful sales advice from salespeople “who’ve lived it.”

    “Let’s say you’re a vice president of sales at a startup or a company that’s just getting off the ground,” writes Sara Varni on the Salesforce blog. “You’re tasked with building a sales team from scratch and are thinking about all of the processes that involves. You could really use some practical hands-on information about how to get up and running.”

    “Or say you’re a sales account executive who has had a lot of success where you are in your career,” she adds. “You’re looking for advice on how to make the jump to the next level. What does it take to become a sales manager? Would you even make a good sales manager, or should you stay where you are and keep crushing your quota?”

    This is who Quotable is for. You an peruse the site here, and find content about technology for concept selling, how prospects can tell if you’ve done your due diligence, how to respond to a particular blow off, etc.

    Image via Salesforce

  • Salesforce Introduces Updated App Cloud

    Salesforce Introduces Updated App Cloud

    Last fall, Salesforce announced Salesforce App Cloud, which it called the “next evolution” of the Salesforce1 Platform. It brought together Force.com, Heroku Enterprise, and the previously announced Lightning user interface, in addition to a learning resource called Trailhead, which includes tutorials and guides.

    App Cloud falls under the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) category aimed at enterprise businesses focusing on building apps, whether they are for company use or for customers. It’s essentially a consolidation of several of Salesforce’s products that unifies the experience and makes things less confusing for enterprises and developers.

    The company just announced the updated App Cloud with the general availability of Heroku Enterprise. From the Salesforce blog:

    Since launching App Cloud in 2015, we’ve noticed many of our customers growing their business by creating a superior customer experience through digital technology. Apartment List has saved renters time and money through an elegant, multi-device app experience. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines engaged fliers through social and mobile tools they already use. So in September 2015, we announced Heroku Enterprise as the next step in helping organizations create the new Internet consumer experience.

    Since then, the Age of the Customer has exploded–with businesses of all sizes racing to build and deliver the elegant, unified and digital customer experience once only seen from the Ubers of the world. Our mission with App Cloud is to give everyone, from citizen developers to CIOs, the tools to deliver modern and innovative customer experiences. Heroku Enterprise is a key part of how we enable that, joining App Cloud’s already best-in-class stable of services that range from the democratizing power of point-and-click programming tools to extra levels of trust and control around business-critical applications.

    You can learn more about Heroku Enterprise features here.

    Salesforce will host a webinar about App Cloud and Heroku Enterprise on February 18.