云服务提供商Salesforce推出新玩法,促进预测营销
现在对于营销来说重要的已经不是客户在做什么了,而是客户下一步想做什么。这正是客户关系管理服务商Salesforce推出新服务的理念所在。
昨天,客户关系管理服务商Salesforce营销云服务推出了先期客户满意度的升级版:预测性决策(Predictive Decisions)。
该功能会检查一个匿名或已知客户的喜好,分析客户互动的轨迹,然后提供推荐内容和产品,或通过网站和电邮提供实时推荐。
“以前,信息和内容必须从第三方资源获得,”家具零售商Room & Board的网络客户体验主管Kimberly Ruthenbeck说,该公司使用了Salesforce的营销云服务。
她说,现在预测性决策功能让收集用户行为信息变得更容易了,因为信息和内容会实时传到平台上。另外,个性化过程是自动的。
通过电子渠道客户会获得定制的店内销售体验。当客户选择或拒绝推荐时,预测性决策会自动更新客户资料以反映这些喜好。
“过去营销人员对于使用预测性营销很挣扎,”Salesforce的产品营销副总裁Gordon Evans说。
现在,对于一位两周前买了一套灰色沙发的30多岁女性顾客,Room & Board的营销渠道能更容易地自动表示她可能会对一个刚上架的黑色枕头感兴趣。
Evans称新一代的预测营销要解决几个关键问题,包括传送多个来源客户信息的难题,新品推出的内容更新,以及在所用渠道和顾客旅程中的个性化推荐。
Salesforce以前营销云服务上的预测营销重点关注网站。“我们正在做的是把服务扩张到电邮和其他途径,让它使用起来更容易。”
对于卖家来说,事先知道顾客想要买什么很重要。Salesforce称新的预测功能可以让网站收入提高10%,转化率提高25%。
当然,如今“预测性”成了营销的一个常见修饰语,许多平台都宣称他们能提供产品推荐。Evans表示新功能与众不同,因为它是营销云服务原创的,顾客信息、新内容和推荐将实时传送到所有渠道。
“顾客与公司互动时想要相关的经验,”Salesforce咨询合作方Bluewolf的首席运营官Corinne Sklar说。
“预测性分析是通向智能新体验的入口,这种体验将彰显品牌和促进客户忠诚度。”她又表示Bluewolf最近关于Salesforce的报告发现后者将近四分之三的客户将增加在分析上的投资,以促成“有意义的顾客时刻”。
【文章来源VB,编译:菜蚁,首发钛媒体】
Salesforce pumps up its anticipatory marketing with new Predictive Decisions
It’s no longer just about what the customer does. It’s becoming more about what the customer wants to do next.
That’s the idea behind Predictive Decisions, the new level of preemptive customer satisfaction launched today on Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud.
It looks at an anonymous or known customer’s preferences, analyzes the trail of customer interactions, and then offers recommended content, products, or offers in real time across such channels as websites and email.
“Before, data and content had to be pulled from third party sources,” Kimberly Ruthenbeck told me via email. She’s director of web customer experience at furniture retailer Room & Board, which uses the Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
Now, she said, Predictive Decisions makes it “much easier for us to implement the collection of user behavior” because data and content are streaming in real time into the platform. Plus, she noted, the personalization process is automated.
The customer gets a more “customized, in-store sales experience” across digital channels, she said. When the customer chooses — or rejects — the recommendations, Predictive Decisions automatically updates customer profiles to reflect those preferences.
“Marketers were struggling to use predictive marketing,” Salesforce VP of product marketing Gordon Evans told me.
Now, he said, it’s easier for Room & Board’s marketing channels to automatically suggest that a mid-30s woman who bought a gray sofa two weeks ago might be interested in a new black pillow that was just added to the catalog.
He said this new generation of the company’s predictive marketing required addressing several key challenges — including the difficulty of streaming multiple sources of customer data, content updates like new products, and the resulting personalized recommendations across all channels and across the entire customer journey.
The previous generation of predictive marketing on Marketing Cloud focused on websites, he said. “What we’re doing is expanding that into email and the rest of the channels, and making it easier to use.”
Salesforce第三财季营收与利润均超分析师预期,但当前财季业绩预期疲软
Salesforce今天发布了2015财年第三财季财报。财报显示,Salesforce当季实现营收13.83亿美元,不按照美国通用会计准则(non-GAAP)计算,合每股收益0.14美元;按照美国通用会计准则(GAAP)计算,Salesforce第三财季净亏损3892万美元,合每股亏损0.06美元。华尔街分析师此前预计Salesforce第三财季营收为13.71亿美元,合每股收益0.13美元。
第三财季,来自重复性订阅产品的收入在Salesforce总营收的占比达到了93%,与去年同期持平。对于任何一家SaaS(软件即服务)公司而言,订阅收入都是一项重要指标。
按照美国通用会计准则计算,Salesforce的亏损与去年同期相比大幅减少。2014财年第三财季,Salesforce亏损达到了1.24434亿美元,合每股亏损0.21美元。2015财年第三财季,Salesforce的总营收同比增长29%。
对于当前的第四财季,Salesforce预计公司营收在14.36亿美元到14.41亿美元之间,同比增长25%到26%。
此外,Salesforce预计公司营收增长速度在即将到来的2016财年会继续下滑。该公司预计,2016年财年营收介于64.5亿美元到65亿美元之间,比2015财年增长约20%到21%。
Salesforce的营收增长速度开始放缓并不足为奇。按照规律,每次营收数字太大,都会对同比带来更大的拖累。Salesforce预计全年20%到21%的营收增长速度好像也不能激起投资商的热情——毕竟,该公司股价在盘后交易中出现下跌——但是我认为这个数字并不太疲软。分析师此前预计2016财年Salesforce的营收增长幅度只有数百万美元。
截至2015财年第三财季末,Salesforce持有的现金及现金等价物为18.3亿美元。
这个季度,由于Dreamforce用户大会的举行,Salesforce一直忙着推出各种各样的新产品。其中一个重磅产品就是外界期待已久的分析产品“Wave”。除此之外,Salesforce还宣布他们正在扩大与微软的合作范围(双方合作始于今年春天),同时对移动应用开发项目(现称作Salesforce 1 Lightning)进行重大调整。Salesforce还对旗下核心CRM(客户关系管理)工具做了更新,增加了交互式实时客户服务功能。
Salesforce Slips On Weak Guidance, Despite Beating On Both Revenue And Profit In Its FQ3
In its fiscal 2015 third quarter, Salesforce reported revenue of $1.383 billion, non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.14, a GAAP net loss of $38.92 million, and a GAAP loss per share of $0.06. Analysts had expected $0.13 in adjusted profit on revenue of $1.371 billion.
The percentage of its revenue that came from recurring, subscription sources — a key metric for any SaaS business — totaled 93 percent for the firm, unchanged from the year-ago quarter.
The company’s GAAP losses were down steeply year-over-year, when the company lost $124.434 million, or $0.21 per share. For the period, Salesforce’s total revenue rose 29 percent compared to its year-ago quarter.
For its current fiscal fourth quarter, Salesforce expects revenue of $1.436 billion to $1.441 billion. Those figures would push the company’s revenue up between 25 and 26 percent on a year-over-year basis.
Salesforce expects its revenue growth to slip further in its rapidly-approaching fiscal 2016, during which it expects to generate top line of $6.45 billion to $6.50 billion, which according to the firm will represent growth of around 20 to 21 percent compared to the preceding fiscal year.
That Salesforce is seeing slowing percentage growth is not surprising. The law of large numbers drags harder every time you increase your revenue compared to a prior-year quarter. Salesforce’s predicted full-year 20 to 21 percent growth doesn’t appear to have greatly enthused investors — its shares are off after-hours, after all — but I don’t think that the number is too soft either. Analysts had expected a few hundred million more for its fiscal 2016.
The company had cash and equivalents of $1.83 billion at the end of its fiscal third quarter.
Salesforce has been extremely busy this quarter making a flurry of announcements around their mega Dreamforce user conference. The big news was the long awaited analytics product called Wave. In addition, Salesforce announced that they were extending the partnership with Microsoft announced last Spring and there was a major overhaul and rebranding of the mobile app development program, which is now called Salesforce 1 Lightning. They also gave their core CRM tool a refresh and added an interactive live customer service feature.
来源:TC