Smart managers are the backbone of any business – but when leadership is running on empty, things can start falling through the cracks. When tasks begin piling up and managers’ attention is pulled in every direction, AI tools can step in to help.
Leadership roles in departments from payroll to administration services face up to 96% chance for computerization in the near future. But automation overhaul isn’t exactly a new concept; retail workers, service industry staff and everything in between has fallen risk to AI-replacement. Why should managerial work be any different? Machines can gather information, analyze the data, learn from past events, and most importantly, recommend solutions in the same way a human manager could, albeit much faster. But reliance on such programs doesn’t necessarily mean we are without responsibility; too much pressure on automation can lead to disastrous outcomes.
For Amazon, this took form in their “state of the art” hiring AI that was built to help fast-track the hiring process. With already over 600,000 employees on payroll, hiring is a big job for Amazon and this AI algorithm was expected to change the game. Until it didn’t. In order to teach the algorithm, it was fed ten years worth of resumes to identify successful hiring patterns. The previously male-dominated industry was evident in these successful hires and as development continued, the algorithm began to pick up on the pattern of gender discrimination. By 2018, the program was scrapped as the AI began penalizing resumes including the word “women” and filtering out listings of all-female colleges.
Hiring is perhaps one of the most personal and one of the most difficult of all business operations, especially for small business. Today, over half of small businesses use some form of tech to help move along recruiting, but smart leaders know there’s no substitute for a meaningful, in-person interview. The takeaway for automated management and its imitations is along a similar vein to AI in any other position – it simply lacks the human touch. So when office managers and project managers are spending their creative energies on mundane and repeatable tasks, they cannot away lead their team effectively. Here’s the AI that changes everything.
AI gives us a great opportunity to truly “work smarter, not harder.” Products specifically designed to reshape office management, like Managed By Q, turn regular tasks into a localized and cohesive platform. In this program, managing scheduling from maintenance to interviews is a snap, employees may submit requests with minimal workflow interruptions, and booking, communication, and billing are handled on a single place. Project management standards get a new look as well with AI tools that help break up even the most complicated projects into simple, easily achievable tasks. iCEO is one such platform that not only helps keep traditional employees on task and in communication but also communicated with freelancers and gig workers to manage progress that keeps everyone on the same page.
More than four in five businesses believe they could benefit from bringing in better tech, but that’s only half the battle. In spite of this, one in five businesses thinks it’s just too much of a hassle to buy and implement new tech. Here’s where to start. This infographic details the powerful new tools of the trade for managers, how they are helping us lead our teams better, refocusing daily operations, and finally giving us the time to concentrate on what matters. Will AI replace your manager? Let us know in the comments.
We’ve been talking about 5G for a very long time and now the opportunity is really here, says Kathrin Buvac, President and CSO of Nokia Enterprise. “We’ve said for a number of years that 5G will enable the Industrial Revolution.” Buvac added. “It’s clear that 5G has to be a lot more than mobility services. When I talk with enterprise customers I really do believe that these productivity gains that are spoken about are real. Operational efficiencies, process automation, all the way to dark factory operations to full autonomy, that is really what’s coming.”
We’ve been talking about 5G for a very long time and now the opportunity is really here. We’ve said for a number of years that 5G will enable the Industrial Revolution. It’s clear that 5G has to be a lot more than mobility services. When I talk with enterprise customers I really do believe that these productivity gains that are spoken about are real. Operational efficiencies, process automation, all the way to dark factory operations to full autonomy, that is really what’s coming.
Before we go to the deep depths of 5g technology I think they’re really two things. One is the convergence of IT and OT technologies. Enterprises need to bring their enterprise IT services and the operations technology together. That is not so easily done. The other thing is digital. Think about Amazon and Netflix and what they’ve done transforming physical goods, books into eBooks, and DVDs into streaming. That will not be possible unfortunately with Industry 4.0, meaning we cannot digitize a crane or a truck in a mine. That’s just not possible.
Industrial Digital Twins Powered Via 5G
What we will do is create digital copies of the big machines or robots. That is what we call the digital twins. What that has to do with 5G technology is that it all starts in connecting these sensors, these machines, these robots, these devices, the co-workers in the factories, in the minds, and in the energy networks. That is where ultimately we will need 5G technology because of the big promise of lower latencies or higher bandwidth capacity, etc.
I think there are a few geographies that are leading the industrial automation. I would say from our standpoint it’s clearly the US. It is clearly Germany where car manufacturing and many manufacturing opportunities are coming. It’s Japan and it’s a few other geographies across the globe that are really leading the pack right now in terms of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that we have to look into.
The Industrial Opportunity is Striking
One thing that is striking me is the industrial opportunity. Over 15 million industrial sites will be deployed in the next decade. We have today 6.5 to 7 million base stations deployed in LTE worldwide. So it’s more than double the number of industrial sites that we somehow all together need to deploy to enable IoT. How are we going to do that?
There is the issue of spectrum availability. We have to be super creative, whether that is shared license, CBRS, 3.5, large scale carrier subleasing spectrum, and making money through that. It’s so critical and that also determines which country, which geography, which enterprise customer will go first. Industrial devices will just not be as quickly available as the smartphone’s which will be made available this year. There is still a lag.
5G Is a Complete Redefinition of the Network
5G is a complete redefinition of the network. We have all discussed AI, edge, and cloud. But we have to bridge now for a couple of years for enterprise customers as we take them to 5G. The question is really because enterprise customers want to leverage productivity gains now, not tomorrow, like yesterday. The question is really how do we do that? Can we potentially provide private wireless networks, with the help of our telco customers, to enterprises that can then just be a software upgrade to 5G? We would do this while we deploy industrial sites today based on LTE technology.
Enterprise customers are wired a little bit differently than us consumers. think about uplink video. We’re just so used to down-linking from tablets as consumers. We need a lot of uplink capacity if we use email or if we browse. If for a millisecond the network doesn’t work it bothers us, but it’s not the end of the world. But we need six nines reliability in the network in order to make sure we have the unmanned vehicles in the mines or the robots and the factories running precisely with that accuracy. A lot of work is needed still to get the 5G networks where they need to be, but it’s really exciting times to build that infrastructure.
Qualcomm President Cristiano Amon sees enormous potential for 5G to change the form factor of devices. “The most important thing is as you change your experience with 5G you’re going to want a different type of device and a different type of screen size and resolution,” says Amon. “The apps are also going to become way more powerful and you will actually have more powerful hardware that goes along with.”
I feel that there’s enormous potential for 5G to change the form factor of devices. We’re very proud of this partnership with Samsung and how they have been a great partner pioneering this new technology with us. We also see a number of different devices being announced and we see a potential for form factors to change. The most important thing is as you change your experience with 5G you’re going to want a different type of device and a different type of screen size and resolution. The apps are also going to become way more powerful and you will actually have more powerful hardware that goes along with.
Bigger screens are here to stay. I think you will see the opportunity for larger screens as you have flexible OLED technology. You’re also going to see devices that are more specialized for more capable gaming because 5G will allow you to have mainstream gaming on 5G devices. You’re going to see devices there are going to converge between productivity. Over time, we expect to see virtual reality or augmented reality devices as well as a companion to your phone that is going to be using 5G technology. We hope that they look like eyeglasses.
Qualcomm 5G PowerSave Technology
One of the big announcements we’ve made at the show (MWC Barcelona 2019), we’re very proud of it, is the Qualcomm 5G PowerSave technology. That is actually a technology that is allowing the first generation of 5G phones to allow you to have all-day battery life. We have a very mature smartphone base today and users won’t settle for any less than we have on your phones currently. I think that’s the bar for those new 5g flagships. We’re happy a number of OEMs announced phones at this show with this technology.
I will do a comparison because I think sometimes we forget about what happened in 4G. When we were about this time launching 4G technology, that was over a decade ago, we had two operators and four devices. Look where we are right now. We have 20 operators and 30 devices. It’s an order of magnitude different. Actually, it’s a proxy about how much faster 5G is going to get deployed.
You can try a lot of stuff, but what used to work to collect emails doesn’t work as well now, says internet marketing experts Neil Patel & Eric Siu on their Marketing School podcast. What does work effectively they say are free tools. Entrepreneurs can even buy cheap scripts or full websites with these tools and rebrand them to drive email collection and leads.
Neil Patel&Eric Siu, discussed the tactics they use to drive email collection on their Marketing School podcast (listen below):
High-End Popup Software
Let’s start with popup software. There are a lot of different email popup software tools out there. There is Bounce Exchange which charges thousands of dollars, and possibly as much as $10,000 a month. It’s a done-for-you service. The benefit is that they do all of the optimization and conversion stuff for you. (Neil Patel at one time used them successfully.)
There is something else similar to Balance Exchange. It’s also a very done-for-you service, which means they will find out what your offers are and they will design the popups for you and they will manage it based on your desired conversion rate. This business is called Exit Intelligence. It’s somewhat more cost-effective at around $1,500 – $3,000 a month. It’s something that we are experimenting with right now.
Email Collection Tools Don’t Work Like They Used To
You can try a lot of stuff, but what used to work to collect emails doesn’t work as well now. You will find that exit popups don’t work as well as they used to. They still work, but just not as well. Content upgrades don’t work as well as they used to. Blocking out content and requiring a name and email to read it works well. I used to even block it out and make you share the content which worked well too.
I found quizzes to work really well because you can collect leads at the same time. LeadQuizzes is another solution that you can use. In general, if you want to collect emails you have to figure out a better mousetrap. I don’t know what the better mousetrap is because it is going to vary by business. What I mean by that is that exit popups, content upgrades, quizzes, none of them work as well as they used to. You have to truly find something that is unique.
Offer Free Tools to Effectively Collect Emails
My version of it now is going to be to create a free tool and give it to people who have to register with their email address. That’s how you are going to effectively collect emails in 2019. It’s going to have to be something like a calculator or tool, something that is added value to people that are used to paying for it and who will gladly give you their email address.
You don’t necessarily need to build a tool either. There is a site called 1Kprojects where you can actually buy tools. Developers make a lot of tools and end up throwing them away. Instead, they post them on this site to sell cheaply. You can also just buy scripts even cheaper, sometimes as low as $10 – $20. For whatever industry you are in you can literally buy a script or pre-made tool that you can leverage for email collection. It’s not hard to build a WordPress plugin either. It can be a basic tool.
How Frank Kern is Driving Revenue From YouTube
You know Frank Kern, the marketer. He’s all about the email before (content access). I’m actually observing what he is doing on YouTube where he’s going live every single day and he drives people to KernClass.com and people opt-in there. What happens is he not only collects the email addresses but he is actually driving revenue from those live videos too. He’s going live everyday and in a 30 day period he did over $350K.
Smart managers are the backbone of any business – but when leadership is running on empty, things can start falling through the cracks. When tasks begin piling up and managers’ attention is pulled in every direction, AI tools can step in to help.
Leadership roles in departments from payroll to administration services face up to 96% chance for computerization in the near future. But automation overhaul isn’t exactly a new concept; retail workers, service industry staff and everything in between has fallen risk to AI-replacement. Why should managerial work be any different? Machines can gather information, analyze the data, learn from past events, and most importantly, recommend solutions in the same way a human manager could, albeit much faster. But reliance on such programs doesn’t necessarily mean we are without responsibility; too much pressure on automation can lead to disastrous outcomes.
For Amazon, this took form in their “state of the art” hiring AI that was built to help fast-track the hiring process. With already over 600,000 employees on payroll, hiring is a big job for Amazon and this AI algorithm was expected to change the game. Until it didn’t. In order to teach the algorithm, it was fed ten years worth of resumes to identify successful hiring patterns. The previously male-dominated industry was evident in these successful hires and as development continued, the algorithm began to pick up on the pattern of gender discrimination. By 2018, the program was scrapped as the AI began penalizing resumes including the word “women” and filtering out listings of all-female colleges.
Hiring is perhaps one of the most personal and one of the most difficult of all business operations, especially for small business. Today, over half of small businesses use some form of tech to help move along recruiting, but smart leaders know there’s no substitute for a meaningful, in-person interview. The takeaway for automated management and its imitations is along a similar vein to AI in any other position – it simply lacks the human touch. So when office managers and project managers are spending their creative energies on mundane and repeatable tasks, they cannot away lead their team effectively. Here’s the AI that changes everything.
AI gives us a great opportunity to truly “work smarter, not harder.” Products specifically designed to reshape office management, like Managed By Q, turn regular tasks into a localized and cohesive platform. In this program, managing scheduling from maintenance to interviews is a snap, employees may submit requests with minimal workflow interruptions, and booking, communication, and billing are handled on a single place. Project management standards get a new look as well with AI tools that help break up even the most complicated projects into simple, easily achievable tasks. iCEO is one such platform that not only helps keep traditional employees on task and in communication but also communicated with freelancers and gig workers to manage progress that keeps everyone on the same page.
More than four in five businesses believe they could benefit from bringing in better tech, but that’s only half the battle. In spite of this, one in five businesses thinks it’s just too much of a hassle to buy and implement new tech. Here’s where to start. This infographic details the powerful new tools of the trade for managers, how they are helping us lead our teams better, refocusing daily operations, and finally giving us the time to concentrate on what matters. Will AI replace your manager? Let us know in the comments.
We’ve been talking about 5G for a very long time and now the opportunity is really here, says Kathrin Buvac, President and CSO of Nokia Enterprise. “We’ve said for a number of years that 5G will enable the Industrial Revolution.” Buvac added. “It’s clear that 5G has to be a lot more than mobility services. When I talk with enterprise customers I really do believe that these productivity gains that are spoken about are real. Operational efficiencies, process automation, all the way to dark factory operations to full autonomy, that is really what’s coming.”
We’ve been talking about 5G for a very long time and now the opportunity is really here. We’ve said for a number of years that 5G will enable the Industrial Revolution. It’s clear that 5G has to be a lot more than mobility services. When I talk with enterprise customers I really do believe that these productivity gains that are spoken about are real. Operational efficiencies, process automation, all the way to dark factory operations to full autonomy, that is really what’s coming.
Before we go to the deep depths of 5g technology I think they’re really two things. One is the convergence of IT and OT technologies. Enterprises need to bring their enterprise IT services and the operations technology together. That is not so easily done. The other thing is digital. Think about Amazon and Netflix and what they’ve done transforming physical goods, books into eBooks, and DVDs into streaming. That will not be possible unfortunately with Industry 4.0, meaning we cannot digitize a crane or a truck in a mine. That’s just not possible.
Industrial Digital Twins Powered Via 5G
What we will do is create digital copies of the big machines or robots. That is what we call the digital twins. What that has to do with 5G technology is that it all starts in connecting these sensors, these machines, these robots, these devices, the co-workers in the factories, in the minds, and in the energy networks. That is where ultimately we will need 5G technology because of the big promise of lower latencies or higher bandwidth capacity, etc.
I think there are a few geographies that are leading the industrial automation. I would say from our standpoint it’s clearly the US. It is clearly Germany where car manufacturing and many manufacturing opportunities are coming. It’s Japan and it’s a few other geographies across the globe that are really leading the pack right now in terms of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that we have to look into.
The Industrial Opportunity is Striking
One thing that is striking me is the industrial opportunity. Over 15 million industrial sites will be deployed in the next decade. We have today 6.5 to 7 million base stations deployed in LTE worldwide. So it’s more than double the number of industrial sites that we somehow all together need to deploy to enable IoT. How are we going to do that?
There is the issue of spectrum availability. We have to be super creative, whether that is shared license, CBRS, 3.5, large scale carrier subleasing spectrum, and making money through that. It’s so critical and that also determines which country, which geography, which enterprise customer will go first. Industrial devices will just not be as quickly available as the smartphone’s which will be made available this year. There is still a lag.
5G Is a Complete Redefinition of the Network
5G is a complete redefinition of the network. We have all discussed AI, edge, and cloud. But we have to bridge now for a couple of years for enterprise customers as we take them to 5G. The question is really because enterprise customers want to leverage productivity gains now, not tomorrow, like yesterday. The question is really how do we do that? Can we potentially provide private wireless networks, with the help of our telco customers, to enterprises that can then just be a software upgrade to 5G? We would do this while we deploy industrial sites today based on LTE technology.
Enterprise customers are wired a little bit differently than us consumers. think about uplink video. We’re just so used to down-linking from tablets as consumers. We need a lot of uplink capacity if we use email or if we browse. If for a millisecond the network doesn’t work it bothers us, but it’s not the end of the world. But we need six nines reliability in the network in order to make sure we have the unmanned vehicles in the mines or the robots and the factories running precisely with that accuracy. A lot of work is needed still to get the 5G networks where they need to be, but it’s really exciting times to build that infrastructure.
Automated marketing tools have evolved over the last few decades, giving generations of marketers new and innovative ways to engage with their customers. That’s not going to stop anytime soon. Automated marketing technology continues to advance rapidly. And over the next few years, it’ll change the way people experience your brand and interact with your company.
I think we are entering the age of the customer experience platform.
A Bit of Perspective
Automated marketing first emerged with the development of customer relationship management (CRM) platforms in the late ‘80s. Of course, these platforms were expensive and therefore limited to large, multinational corporations. But they taught us how new technology can be leveraged to improve how we interact with customers.
The earliest automated marketing tools were introduced in the ‘90s with the invention of web analytics and predictive marketing campaign management software. And now, in an era where MarTech stacks are growing exponentially, the number of new solutions can be intimidating.
The Winds of Change
People buy technology on a bell curve—early adopters and innovators first, then majorities, and laggards catching on last. For a technology to move from a niche group of forward thinkers to the greater population, it must grow and become a holistic solution.
Consider the iPhone. The earliest versions, released in 2007 (and practically primitive by today’s standards), were sought after by only the most tech savvy. But as the smartphone’s functionality and ease of use grew, so did its popularity.
Today, we’re observing a similar trend in marketing technology. Over the next few years, we will see automated marketing tools evolve into customer experience platforms. And they’ll begin to serve as the backbone for a new generation of innovative solutions that enhance customer experience.
But what does this changing landscape mean for how marketers work?
1. Imagine the Death of the Landing Page as We Know it
That’s right, the days of the traditional landing page are numbered. Web analytics and AI are simply advancing too fast.
Take a company like Drift, for example. It can replace static landing pages with chatbots that ask visitors pertinent questions to gather data about them and customize the customer experience on a site. Feedback provided to the chatbot allows the site visitor to, in essence, choose their own experience on the site. (For an example of this, think Netflix’s interactive content, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.)
Imagine your customer visits a landing page for an upcoming webinar series. Instead of the standard registration form, a bot appears and asks which session they’re interested in attending, what reminders they would like (text, email, or an in-app pop up), and if they’d like more information.
The next time they visit your site, the chatbot remembers their interaction and offers the best next step. Perhaps they missed a webinar they registered for, the chatbot offers them a recording of the webinar, or maybe they are offered a related industry report or product demo.
It’s no longer a static, form-based interaction. It’s a dynamic, interactive, barrier-free experience driven by machine learning that leverages data from, and about the visitor.
2. The Intelligent Inbox Enables More Impactful Engagement
Vital information no longer has to remain stranded in an email inbox. Instead, it can be automatically detected and centralized to maximize opportunity and reduce risk.
Here’s how:
Say you have a contact in your database. When you send them an email from your marketing automation system there is an automatic reply, indicating that they are out of the office for four weeks. A tool like Siftrock can pause all email communication to that individual until they return.
Or, if that person is no longer with the company, technology can automatically extract an identified new contact from the auto-response and add the new contact to your database.
Another solution that enriches your database using information already at hand comes from Clari. Their solution connects to a salesperson’s inbox and calendar and can identify events and contacts related to ongoing sales cycles. No longer will your sales team have key contacts sitting in their inbox that are not in your CRM. Clari will add them automatically. This helps to ensure that all the relevant contacts are automatically associated with an opportunity providing clearer insights around forecasting and attribution.
With the added ability to access important information from a salesperson’s inbox, you can engage with customers in a more meaningful way.
3. The Once-hidden Opportunities that Data Can Reveal
There’s an overwhelming amount of data available these days. And marketers are finally starting to realize the potential opportunities it offers.
By harvesting all the rich data in your marketing automation system and aligning it with the data from your CRM, you can have access to detailed analytics on campaign and revenue attribution readily at your disposal. In addition to campaign and revenue attribution, you will have a clearer picture of how to predict sales growth in different geographic regions and anticipate associated staffing needs.
But most importantly, with this combined marketing and sales data, you can eliminate your most common CRM software shortfall: the lack of communication between your siloed data in your CRM and your marketing automation system.
And once you integrate this information, you’ll discover a wealth of opportunities right in front of you.
Tying it All Together
With multiple automated marketing tools sifting through so much data, you need a centralized customer experience platform orchestrating all these activities. What was once an automated marketing tool is now serving as something of a customer experience operating system and paving the way for a new generation of offerings.
This gives marketers like you the chance to investigate, test, and refine customer interactions—and ultimately deliver the best experience possible.
Lucky for us, that’s exactly what automated marketing tools are here for: to help us do what we do best…only better.
Qualcomm President Cristiano Amon sees enormous potential for 5G to change the form factor of devices. “The most important thing is as you change your experience with 5G you’re going to want a different type of device and a different type of screen size and resolution,” says Amon. “The apps are also going to become way more powerful and you will actually have more powerful hardware that goes along with.”
I feel that there’s enormous potential for 5G to change the form factor of devices. We’re very proud of this partnership with Samsung and how they have been a great partner pioneering this new technology with us. We also see a number of different devices being announced and we see a potential for form factors to change. The most important thing is as you change your experience with 5G you’re going to want a different type of device and a different type of screen size and resolution. The apps are also going to become way more powerful and you will actually have more powerful hardware that goes along with.
Bigger screens are here to stay. I think you will see the opportunity for larger screens as you have flexible OLED technology. You’re also going to see devices that are more specialized for more capable gaming because 5G will allow you to have mainstream gaming on 5G devices. You’re going to see devices there are going to converge between productivity. Over time, we expect to see virtual reality or augmented reality devices as well as a companion to your phone that is going to be using 5G technology. We hope that they look like eyeglasses.
Qualcomm 5G PowerSave Technology
One of the big announcements we’ve made at the show (MWC Barcelona 2019), we’re very proud of it, is the Qualcomm 5G PowerSave technology. That is actually a technology that is allowing the first generation of 5G phones to allow you to have all-day battery life. We have a very mature smartphone base today and users won’t settle for any less than we have on your phones currently. I think that’s the bar for those new 5g flagships. We’re happy a number of OEMs announced phones at this show with this technology.
I will do a comparison because I think sometimes we forget about what happened in 4G. When we were about this time launching 4G technology, that was over a decade ago, we had two operators and four devices. Look where we are right now. We have 20 operators and 30 devices. It’s an order of magnitude different. Actually, it’s a proxy about how much faster 5G is going to get deployed.
You can try a lot of stuff, but what used to work to collect emails doesn’t work as well now, says internet marketing experts Neil Patel & Eric Siu on their Marketing School podcast. What does work effectively they say are free tools. Entrepreneurs can even buy cheap scripts or full websites with these tools and rebrand them to drive email collection and leads.
Neil Patel&Eric Siu, discussed the tactics they use to drive email collection on their Marketing School podcast (listen below):
High-End Popup Software
Let’s start with popup software. There are a lot of different email popup software tools out there. There is Bounce Exchange which charges thousands of dollars, and possibly as much as $10,000 a month. It’s a done-for-you service. The benefit is that they do all of the optimization and conversion stuff for you. (Neil Patel at one time used them successfully.)
There is something else similar to Balance Exchange. It’s also a very done-for-you service, which means they will find out what your offers are and they will design the popups for you and they will manage it based on your desired conversion rate. This business is called Exit Intelligence. It’s somewhat more cost-effective at around $1,500 – $3,000 a month. It’s something that we are experimenting with right now.
Email Collection Tools Don’t Work Like They Used To
You can try a lot of stuff, but what used to work to collect emails doesn’t work as well now. You will find that exit popups don’t work as well as they used to. They still work, but just not as well. Content upgrades don’t work as well as they used to. Blocking out content and requiring a name and email to read it works well. I used to even block it out and make you share the content which worked well too.
I found quizzes to work really well because you can collect leads at the same time. LeadQuizzes is another solution that you can use. In general, if you want to collect emails you have to figure out a better mousetrap. I don’t know what the better mousetrap is because it is going to vary by business. What I mean by that is that exit popups, content upgrades, quizzes, none of them work as well as they used to. You have to truly find something that is unique.
Offer Free Tools to Effectively Collect Emails
My version of it now is going to be to create a free tool and give it to people who have to register with their email address. That’s how you are going to effectively collect emails in 2019. It’s going to have to be something like a calculator or tool, something that is added value to people that are used to paying for it and who will gladly give you their email address.
You don’t necessarily need to build a tool either. There is a site called 1Kprojects where you can actually buy tools. Developers make a lot of tools and end up throwing them away. Instead, they post them on this site to sell cheaply. You can also just buy scripts even cheaper, sometimes as low as $10 – $20. For whatever industry you are in you can literally buy a script or pre-made tool that you can leverage for email collection. It’s not hard to build a WordPress plugin either. It can be a basic tool.
How Frank Kern is Driving Revenue From YouTube
You know Frank Kern, the marketer. He’s all about the email before (content access). I’m actually observing what he is doing on YouTube where he’s going live every single day and he drives people to KernClass.com and people opt-in there. What happens is he not only collects the email addresses but he is actually driving revenue from those live videos too. He’s going live everyday and in a 30 day period he did over $350K.
You’ve got a loyal following of delighted customers. Now it’s time to grow. But to do that, you need leads.
The question is, how do you go about getting them? What techniques and approaches will help you generate a consistent stream of leads this year and beyond?
In this blog, I’ll share five simple lead generation methods and the techniques that will help you generate new customers over time. From content creation to face-to-face events, you’ll learn the most effective and affordable ways to expand your audience and generate qualified customers for your small business.
1. Start Using Video
Did you know that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world? With over 1.9 billion users and one billion hours watched daily, it’s almost certain that your customers are active there. Video marketing has other benefits beyond distribution and traffic generation. By telling stories, sharing value, and getting in front of the camera, you’re creating a personal one-to-one connection with your customers.
So, how should you use video in your marketing?
There are several frameworks you can use, including:
Show what you do: Create detailed videos about your products or services. How do the features help customers overcome their challenges? What desires are you helping them to fulfill with what you offer?
Introduce yourself: You can also use video to introduce your brand. These sit well on your home page and can help people build a more personal connection with who you are and what you believe in.
Education: Are you an expert or thought leader in your field? Use video to educate your audience on key and trending topics. Show them how to execute as well as actionable steps
Celebrate your customers: Video testimonials can be huge social proof points. But you can also go one step further and make your customers the star of your video marketing. Use video to tell their story.
Share your culture: Is your company a great place to work? Does what you believe attract similar customers? Share what happens behind-the-scenes to attract talented new hires and customers who share your vision.
Let’s look at some examples of these principles in action, starting with Dollar Shave Club:
With over 25 million views to date, these guys did something right. How? Simple: they put their founder in the spotlight and let their humorous side come out. It was an introduction to their brand and story, sure. But it was also a highly entertaining piece of content that took the internet by storm. Everyone was talking about it because it was raw, honest and genuinely funny.
This entertaining form of video content works gangbusters. But video can also be useful and educational. Take Seattle Coffee Gear, for example:
Here, they don’t talk about their products. Instead, they show their audience the easiest way to make a delicious mocha.
What challenges are your audience trying to overcome? What are their goals? Help them alleviate pains and achieve those goals with value-driven video content. You might be thinking “this sounds expensive.” But it doesn’t have to be, especially in the beginning. You can shoot simple videos for social media platforms right from your smartphone. Even higher quality productions need not be expensive. You can find talented and affordable freelance filmmakers, editors, and animators on websites like Upwork that sit within your budget.
Ultimately, it’s not about the equipment you use, but the story you share.
2. Create a Content Marketing Funnel
Many small businesses rely on paid media to attract new customers. Social media and Google Ads make this easier than ever, with business owners and marketers alike looking to make a positive ROI from their digital advertising. But you don’t need to rely purely on outbound methods. Using inbound marketing principles, you can attract a wider audience and nurture them into new customers over time. It all starts with creating good content.
For example, pet insurance company Petplan use their blog as a hub to provide practical advice for pet owners. They rank for various pet-related keywords, such as “lionhead rabbit” and “why do cats have 9 lives?” that generate between 600 and 20,000 searches a month.
People searching for these keywords may not be looking to buy from them right away. But they can capture their attention, deliver continuous value and drive them down the sales funnel. When they are ready to invest in pet insurance, it’s likely they’ll consider Petplan.
Here’s a simple content marketing process for you to follow when you’re just getting started:
Uncover customer challenges: Send out email surveys asking your customers about why they buy from you and what their pet-related challenges and needs are. Look for product-related and non-product related topics. Speaking to customers face-to-face allows you to dig deeper into their motivations.
Select your topics: Find topics for content that resonate with your brand. For example, Petplan writes about rare dog breeds, information on specific animals and provide pet care tips. These are the topics that interest their existing customers, which is why it attracts new ones too.
Create a lead magnet: Once people read your content, you’ll need to capture their details to nurture them into customers. You can do this with discounts, prize draws, ebooks, and webinars. Anything that delivers something of value up front.
Nurture with email: Now you have their details, it’s time to build the relationship. Use email marketing principles to “drip” more content and add more value over time. Do this with the content they care about most.
Convert leads into customers: Once in a while, it’s okay to send an offer to convert these leads into customers. For example, an ecommerce brand may hold a limited sale or entice first-time customers with discounts. Figure out the offer and call-to-action that works best with your brand.
3. Don’t Neglect Traditional Media
Yes, digital marketing must be a part of every small business’s growth plan. But traditional media still works wonders, especially “local businesses.” However, these mediums only work if your customers are consuming them. Yes, it’s great investing in an ad for a local magazine, but only if your customers are reading it. Earlier, I mentioned that email surveys are a great way of uncovering the right topics for your content efforts. They’re also effective for discovering where your customers hang out online and what publications they read. Use these surveys to see if they consume traditional media.
Print ads can be incredibly creative and inspiring. For example, this ad from Kentucky for Kentucky that was printed in Oxford American magazine used a creative way to get readers’ attention: with a great big typo in the headline:
Luckily, the editors of the magazine found it funny, as did their readers.
Here’s what Kentucky for Kentucky did well here:
They targeted a magazine who had a reader base which included their ideal customer
They used humor to get their attention, not just another boring print ad
Direct mail is another medium that still works wonders (as long as you consider your local and state laws). Take this example from Neville Medhora, where he dissects a direct mail piece from a real estate agent:
In his guide, he shows exactly why this works so well as this ad:
Includes a list of events in the area, providing practical utility for the recipient
Provides all contact info the recipient needs to get in touch
Showcases some example properties, along with their prices
If you’re targeting specific geographic regions, then consider testing direct mail. Make sure you include one offer, make it super clear on what action they should take and provide some kind of value. This should be the philosophy you use in all of your traditional media.
4. Create In-Person Events
Event marketing is another initiative that can seem expensive. But it doesn’t have to be! Indeed, if you select the right format and execute properly, it can be an affordable way of getting in front of your customers face-to-face. Take pop-ups for example. By setting up a pop-up in the street (or within another businesses’ physical location), you can affordably get in front of your customers without having to pay expensive venue costs.
For example, BarkBox took to the streets for a week with their pop-up shop “Barkshop Live.” Here, they fitted visitor’s dogs with an RFID chipped vest and let them play with their dog toys. The vest then displayed to owners which toys their dogs played with most. They could then buy these toys on the spot if they wanted to.
As well as the real-life exposure and press attention, they repurposed content for the event into a video (as seen above). Not only that, but I would hazard a guess that they used the data collected from the RFID chips to inform their product strategy. The lesson here? Squeeze as much value from every event as possible. Then there are networking evenings. Again, instead of hiring out pricey venues, simply get together with other organizations in your market/region and put on a networking event together. Hold speaker sessions, workshops, or panels that allow each business to put their expertise forward. This way, everyone brings their audiences into one place, working together to expand their audience.
For example, Lean Startup Circles bring startup founders together to discuss existing challenges, share ideas, and network with their peers:
Can you bring your industry together to share challenges and new ideas? Use networking events to facilitate new partnerships and business opportunities.
5. Build Your Personal Brand
Often overlooked by small business owners, there’s much power in a strong personal brand. Take the likes of Richard Branson and Gary Vaynerchuk, for example. They’re constantly in the limelight, which in turn brings a huge amount of attention to their companies. Not to mention extending the longevity of their careers, bringing new opportunities outside of their businesses.
Here’s a quick four-step framework to building and maintaining your own personal brand:
Build your platform: Create a website to act as the “hub” for your content. For example, Gary Vaynerchuk uses his website to blog about relevant content he believes in, lists the events he’s attending, and direct visitors to his social accounts:
Define yourself: How do you want to be perceived? Are there any topics you want to be known for by your audience? Define the goals for your personal brand, as well as your values and the “role” you want to be known for.
Create content: Ultimately, your content should share your story and focus on the topics that matter most to you. Seth Godin is an excellent example of creating value-driven content: Don’t forget about social media content. Focus on where your audience is and create content that works on those platforms (e.g., short-form video and photos on Instagram, long-form video on YouTube).
Schedule: Your personal brand isn’t something you can show up to when you feel like it. Just like a business, you need to consistently show up and create great content. Will you create content once a week or daily? Pick a cadence that works for you.
How are you currently growing your small business? Have you found any surprising results from your marketing activities? Join the conversation in the comments below.
You can try a lot of stuff, but what used to work to collect emails doesn’t work as well now, says internet marketing experts Neil Patel & Eric Siu on their Marketing School podcast. What does work effectively they say are free tools. Entrepreneurs can even buy cheap scripts or full websites with these tools and rebrand them to drive email collection and leads.
Neil Patel&Eric Siu, discussed the tactics they use to drive email collection on their Marketing School podcast (listen below):
High-End Popup Software
Let’s start with popup software. There are a lot of different email popup software tools out there. There is Bounce Exchange which charges thousands of dollars, and possibly as much as $10,000 a month. It’s a done-for-you service. The benefit is that they do all of the optimization and conversion stuff for you. (Neil Patel at one time used them successfully.)
There is something else similar to Balance Exchange. It’s also a very done-for-you service, which means they will find out what your offers are and they will design the popups for you and they will manage it based on your desired conversion rate. This business is called Exit Intelligence. It’s somewhat more cost-effective at around $1,500 – $3,000 a month. It’s something that we are experimenting with right now.
Email Collection Tools Don’t Work Like They Used To
You can try a lot of stuff, but what used to work to collect emails doesn’t work as well now. You will find that exit popups don’t work as well as they used to. They still work, but just not as well. Content upgrades don’t work as well as they used to. Blocking out content and requiring a name and email to read it works well. I used to even block it out and make you share the content which worked well too.
I found quizzes to work really well because you can collect leads at the same time. LeadQuizzes is another solution that you can use. In general, if you want to collect emails you have to figure out a better mousetrap. I don’t know what the better mousetrap is because it is going to vary by business. What I mean by that is that exit popups, content upgrades, quizzes, none of them work as well as they used to. You have to truly find something that is unique.
Offer Free Tools to Effectively Collect Emails
My version of it now is going to be to create a free tool and give it to people who have to register with their email address. That’s how you are going to effectively collect emails in 2019. It’s going to have to be something like a calculator or tool, something that is added value to people that are used to paying for it and who will gladly give you their email address.
You don’t necessarily need to build a tool either. There is a site called 1Kprojects where you can actually buy tools. Developers make a lot of tools and end up throwing them away. Instead, they post them on this site to sell cheaply. You can also just buy scripts even cheaper, sometimes as low as $10 – $20. For whatever industry you are in you can literally buy a script or pre-made tool that you can leverage for email collection. It’s not hard to build a WordPress plugin either. It can be a basic tool.
How Frank Kern is Driving Revenue From YouTube
You know Frank Kern, the marketer. He’s all about the email before (content access). I’m actually observing what he is doing on YouTube where he’s going live every single day and he drives people to KernClass.com and people opt-in there. What happens is he not only collects the email addresses but he is actually driving revenue from those live videos too. He’s going live everyday and in a 30 day period he did over $350K.
Computers permeate nearly every aspect of our existence. According to the 2018 National Urban League Equality Index , a computer is in 93.6% of white homes and 89.3% of Black homes in the United States. The prevalence of digital experiences has also created a significant increase in tech industry jobs.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics collectively defines the tech industry as any industry in which at least 14.5% of jobs are in STEM occupations. STEM workers include engineers, IT, scientists, and the managers of those employees. In the 2015-2016 academic calendar year, only 8.2% of all degrees conferred to Blacks in STEM fields compared to 12.8% of degrees and certificates conferred to whites. Not surprisingly, just 5.7% of total Black employment was in the STEM field compared to 8.5% of white workers.
The tech industry has a diversity problem.
Black Impact on Technology
During Black History Month, we want to bring the technologists who helped shape MarTech as we know it today to the forefront. Despite significant roadblocks and oppression at every turn, Black Americans have had an incredible impact.
Here are 8 notable Black Americans that have made a difference in the tech industry:
John Henry Thompson
If you’ve ever watched an animated video, played a video game, or visited a website, you have John Henry Thompson to thank. Known as the “Father of Lingo programming,” Thompson created a scripting language to render visuals in computer programs. Flash and shockwave programs found in animation, video games, and website design are all thanks to this object-oriented programming language known as Lingo.
James Edward West
Carrying over 200 foreign and 47 United States patents, James Edward West is responsible for creating a more compact and cost-effective version of the microphone. By placing polymer electret film on one side, he was able to convert sound into high fidelity electrical signals. His invention is still used in most phones and tape recorders today. At age 88, he is still an active inventor.
Janet Emerson Bashen
The first Black woman to receive a patent for a web-based software invention was Janet Emerson Bashen for LinkLine. The web-based Equal Employment Opportunity case management and tracking software was invented by Bashen and she obtained a patent in December 2007. Since 2007, she’s earned many more patents and continues to innovate in software today.
Mark Dean
One of technology’s top innovators, Dr. Mark Dean is a computer engineer who helped design the IBM personal computer. Dr. Dean led multiple teams throughout his time at IBM, creating the first color computer monitor, the world’s first gigahertz chip, and the Industry Standard Architecture systems bus, a component that allows multiple devices such as modems, keyboards, and printers to be plugged into a computer. Today, Dr. Dean still holds three of IBMs original patents, and over 20 patents overall.
Valerie Thomas
In 1970, Valerie Thomas worked on the image processing systems for the first ever images of space to be sent to earth via satellite. By 1980, Valerie Thomas invented the illusion transmitter. The device creates optical illusion images that appear to be real and in front of the two concave mirrors used to create them. As one of only two women to major in physics at Morgan State University, Thomas’ work with NASA contributed to research on the ozone layer, satellite technology, and Halley’s Comet. She retired in 1995 with numerous NASA awards under her belt.
Marian R. Croak
With over 200 patents under her belt, Dr. Marian R. Croak is a leading expert in voice over internet protocol (VoIP). Dr. Croak also pioneered the way that people donate to charity via text-based donation. In 2005, she filed the patent for text-based donations to charity, revolutionizing charity donations forever. In 2013, she was inducted to the Women in Technology hall of fame and in 2014, she became the VP of Engineering at Google. At Google, she led the team for Project Loon which used balloons to extend network coverage and led the deployment of wifi across India’s railway system.
Lisa Gelobter
You can thank Lisa Gelobter for the above gif as she was integral in the creation of Shockwave Flash, the technology that blazed a trail for web animation. Later, she was a member of the senior management team for the launch of Hulu, playing a major role in the emergence of online video. During Barack Obama’s presidency, she served as Chief Digital Service Officer.
Kimberly Bryant
Kimberly Bryant launched Black Girls Code in 2011 as an organization devoted to teaching young women of color computer coding and programming languages. The six-week program focuses on giving an underrepresented population the chance to learn about a wide range of technology concepts including robotics. Bryant is an advocate as well, stating to Fast Company, “[our organization is] unapologetically black. My goal is to make sure the girls understand there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. This is about taking pride in our culture and advancing our culture.”
The Future of MarTech
As the importance of a diverse workforce comes in to focus, it is vital for companies to stand up and recognize the contributions of marginalized communities and to create new opportunities for these voices to be heard. With amazing contributions like the ones outlined above, MarTech—and the world—depends on the innovation and contribution of Black Americans.
Who would you add to this list and why? I’d love to hear about change-makers and innovators in the comments below.
It’s a new year, and you know what that means: new annual predictions. ‘Tis the season for companies to publish their thoughts and plans for 2019, including us. And we’re betting on big changes, like the growing importance of the customer experience and artificial intelligence (AI).
Our forecasting is based on research and deep knowledge of industry trends. But technology is always evolving—sometimes by leaps, but often by tweaks—so it can be difficult to notice incremental changes. That’s why we find it helpful to glance back over our shoulders to see just how far we’ve come.
Take the iPhone, for example. A decade ago, the smartphone was a year and a half old and only beginning to infiltrate schools, offices, and dinner tables. Now, the technology is ubiquitous. It’s hard to imagine life before—or without—smartphones. In 10 short years, Apple has had a tremendous impact on society.
We believe that AI has the potential to create a paradigm shift at the same level. So instead of looking to the past, let’s fast-forward a decade into the future and consider how AI could transform the buyer’s journey by 2030.
Search and Discovery
Picture Jane, a buyer. In 2019, Jane’s interaction with AI may be limited to chatbots that answer basic questions. At home, she might use digital assistants that learn from her preferences and offer personalized recommendations.
By 2030, AI’s power to collect and analyze large quantities of data will drive ever-improving customer experiences. Companies will be able to create a comprehensive picture of Jane based on her browsing preferences and past purchasing behavior. Her smart assistant will learn from her habits, then base its interactions and buying suggestions on those patterns.
AI will also completely change how marketers interact with customers. When Jane goes online to search for products, she’ll engage with a fully cognitive website. Every aspect of her search will be tailor-made just for her. It will be assembled from hundreds of pieces of microcontent and built-in real-time based on what resonates with her.
In the next decade, AI will make product search and discovery more frictionless—and Jane will feel heard and understood. Companies, by extension, will need to do less work to convert that feeling into a transaction opportunity.
Research and Review
While the early days of AI brought advancements like machine-powered image recognition and responsive retail, by 2030, we’ll have moved into the era of predictive commerce.
With more customer data available than ever before, AI will be able to evaluate trends and behavior patterns for every stage of the buying journey. Companies will have a much fuller grasp on what occurs during the research and consideration phase and will be able to create smarter funnels that lead to greater conversion. Every action Jane takes—from what she purchases to what she doesn’t purchase—will add to a growing knowledge base about her and audiences like her.
In 2019, we see first-name personalization in emails. By 2030, we’ll also be using information like what platforms Jane uses, the depth of her brand relationship, her location, and her social identity to facilitate AI-guided decision making.
From Jane’s perspective, these advancements will help her research and pick the most relevant products for her needs. Things like product recommendations and personalized offers delivered through email or new modes of communication will entice Jane without overwhelming her, as AI will make irrelevant sales pitches and marketing messages a thing of the past.
Marketers will also use AI to integrate insights from across all their tools. CRM data will combine with marketing automation and customer service information to create one extensive dataset. By breaking down silos, AI can unlock the true power of these tools and create a more comprehensive picture of customers like Jane.
This will give marketers a deep understanding of preferences and intent, allowing every contact with her to feel like it’s one-on-one. And with a granular understanding of the products available based on her location, AI will continue to create increasingly better recommendations for Jane. It could even actually predict what she might need next—and where she can find it.
Predictive Purchasing
In 2030, buying products will be faster, more customized, and even predictive.
Retailers will help Jane find products in her precise moment of need. In fact, AI may offer targeted products before Jane even recognizes the need herself. If she’s shopping online for party supplies, like balloons and paper plates, a retailer might anticipate that she’ll also need gift wrap. AI will do the hard work for her by instantaneously sorting through the data, like current price trends and local inventory, and offer her a selection of wrapping paper that she can bundle into her current purchase.
This degree of forecasting relies on identifying patterns within massive datasets that are always changing. AI will help marketers match Jane’s purchasing history and product preferences to local product location, pricing, and inventory for a seamless, intelligent shopping experience.
According to the Baymard Institute, nearly 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned. How many of those will become completed purchases when AI transforms “I’m just browsing” into “You knew just what I needed”?
Service and Support
No two buyers—and no two buyer journeys—are exactly alike. Just as AI will provide the tools to create intelligent websites and marketing campaigns, the evolution of AI-powered customer service platforms will ensure completely personalized, always-on customer care.
Currently, it can be difficult to evaluate how well customer support is functioning. Complex and disparate chains of logistics, like call centers, repair shops, and customer service departments, mean that cohesive information may be lacking. But in the next decade, AI will use data to standardize, measure, and optimize processes, ensuring buyers always receive top-notch service.
For Jane, this is great news. Holidays, time zones, and language barriers will no longer impede service. If Jane is assembling a piece of furniture and needs help at 10:00 p.m. on a Sunday, AI will make assistance available through advanced chatbots that can resolve complaints and answer questions 24/7.
And when the on-demand and predictive elements of AI meet, Jane will be alerted to products of hers that need upcoming support. She won’t have to remember when her car needs service, because AI will—and it will offer to book the appointment for her, too.
2030 is Right Around the Corner
Eleven years will pass in a flash. In fact, we’re already seeing some of these AI capabilities in marketing today. As the power of machines continues to expand exponentially—and the price of these tools continues to decline—AI, automation, and machine learning will completely change the face of marketing by 2030.
We owe it to ourselves to start thinking about what this future will look like now so we can play our own role in reshaping the marketing industry with AI by our side.
Computers permeate nearly every aspect of our existence. According to the 2018 National Urban League Equality Index , a computer is in 93.6% of white homes and 89.3% of Black homes in the United States. The prevalence of digital experiences has also created a significant increase in tech industry jobs.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics collectively defines the tech industry as any industry in which at least 14.5% of jobs are in STEM occupations. STEM workers include engineers, IT, scientists, and the managers of those employees. In the 2015-2016 academic calendar year, only 8.2% of all degrees conferred to Blacks in STEM fields compared to 12.8% of degrees and certificates conferred to whites. Not surprisingly, just 5.7% of total Black employment was in the STEM field compared to 8.5% of white workers.
The tech industry has a diversity problem.
Black Impact on Technology
During Black History Month, we want to bring the technologists who helped shape MarTech as we know it today to the forefront. Despite significant roadblocks and oppression at every turn, Black Americans have had an incredible impact.
Here are 8 notable Black Americans that have made a difference in the tech industry:
John Henry Thompson
If you’ve ever watched an animated video, played a video game, or visited a website, you have John Henry Thompson to thank. Known as the “Father of Lingo programming,” Thompson created a scripting language to render visuals in computer programs. Flash and shockwave programs found in animation, video games, and website design are all thanks to this object-oriented programming language known as Lingo.
James Edward West
Carrying over 200 foreign and 47 United States patents, James Edward West is responsible for creating a more compact and cost-effective version of the microphone. By placing polymer electret film on one side, he was able to convert sound into high fidelity electrical signals. His invention is still used in most phones and tape recorders today. At age 88, he is still an active inventor.
Janet Emerson Bashen
The first Black woman to receive a patent for a web-based software invention was Janet Emerson Bashen for LinkLine. The web-based Equal Employment Opportunity case management and tracking software was invented by Bashen and she obtained a patent in December 2007. Since 2007, she’s earned many more patents and continues to innovate in software today.
Mark Dean
One of technology’s top innovators, Dr. Mark Dean is a computer engineer who helped design the IBM personal computer. Dr. Dean led multiple teams throughout his time at IBM, creating the first color computer monitor, the world’s first gigahertz chip, and the Industry Standard Architecture systems bus, a component that allows multiple devices such as modems, keyboards, and printers to be plugged into a computer. Today, Dr. Dean still holds three of IBMs original patents, and over 20 patents overall.
Valerie Thomas
In 1970, Valerie Thomas worked on the image processing systems for the first ever images of space to be sent to earth via satellite. By 1980, Valerie Thomas invented the illusion transmitter. The device creates optical illusion images that appear to be real and in front of the two concave mirrors used to create them. As one of only two women to major in physics at Morgan State University, Thomas’ work with NASA contributed to research on the ozone layer, satellite technology, and Halley’s Comet. She retired in 1995 with numerous NASA awards under her belt.
Marian R. Croak
With over 200 patents under her belt, Dr. Marian R. Croak is a leading expert in voice over internet protocol (VoIP). Dr. Croak also pioneered the way that people donate to charity via text-based donation. In 2005, she filed the patent for text-based donations to charity, revolutionizing charity donations forever. In 2013, she was inducted to the Women in Technology hall of fame and in 2014, she became the VP of Engineering at Google. At Google, she led the team for Project Loon which used balloons to extend network coverage and led the deployment of wifi across India’s railway system.
Lisa Gelobter
You can thank Lisa Gelobter for the above gif as she was integral in the creation of Shockwave Flash, the technology that blazed a trail for web animation. Later, she was a member of the senior management team for the launch of Hulu, playing a major role in the emergence of online video. During Barack Obama’s presidency, she served as Chief Digital Service Officer.
Kimberly Bryant
Kimberly Bryant launched Black Girls Code in 2011 as an organization devoted to teaching young women of color computer coding and programming languages. The six-week program focuses on giving an underrepresented population the chance to learn about a wide range of technology concepts including robotics. Bryant is an advocate as well, stating to Fast Company, “[our organization is] unapologetically black. My goal is to make sure the girls understand there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. This is about taking pride in our culture and advancing our culture.”
The Future of MarTech
As the importance of a diverse workforce comes in to focus, it is vital for companies to stand up and recognize the contributions of marginalized communities and to create new opportunities for these voices to be heard. With amazing contributions like the ones outlined above, MarTech—and the world—depends on the innovation and contribution of Black Americans.
Who would you add to this list and why? I’d love to hear about change-makers and innovators in the comments below.
The CEO of Geek+ Robotics Robotics, a China-based company, says they don’t see any strong competition outside of China and this includes the United States. “We’ve already entered Japan, Europe, Australia, and the United States and we are seeing a big demand for robotics and automation,” said Zheng Yong. “We almost cannot see any strong competitor outside of China.”
We think the market potential is quite high. We hope in the next four years we can deliver 20,000 to 50,000 robots per year. Our customers come from two directions. One is the retail companies including ecommerce. The second direction is the manufacturing companies.
There is very strong competition in China with lots of strong robotics companies that are growing very fast. We are not only starting automation solutions with robots to our customers, but we also provide logistic service to our customers. We own a lot of operational experiences and we combine those experiences inside our system. We have a lot of data and that will be a long-term advantage.
No Strong Competitor Outside of China
We haven’t got any money from the Chinese government directly. But because the government is promoting this concept in their Made in China Industrial Plan it can help us in the market. Overseas expansion will be our first priority next year. We’ve already entered Japan, Europe, Australia, and the United States and we are seeing a big demand for robotics and automation. We almost cannot see any strong competitor outside of China.
Our business is being impacted by the trade sanctions, taxes are higher. Our plan to grow our business in the United States is a little bit slowed down. We want to see the results of the trade conference between China and the US.
About Geek+ Robotic
Focusing on Logistics and Warehousing, Geek+ leads the technology revolution, by applying advanced robotics and AI technologies to realize high-flexibility and intelligent logistics automation solution. Geek+ provides leading, reliable, one-stop enterprise-level service with strong technological strength, precise customer understanding, thorough after-sales service, and ISO 9001: 2008 quality system.
Geek+ R&D team consists of Ph.D. and master graduates from Tsinghua, PKU, CAS, BEIHANG, USTB, etc., with much solid research and practice experience in the fields of robotics, embedded development, software engineering, artificial intelligence, most of them have joined domestic/international robotic contests and won the championship. All products are developed independently and possess the core patents, with a world-class level performance.
Don’t forget about 
