SAP's Tim Clark advises brand journalists to create stories in their own voice

Tim Clark, Vice President, Head of Native Advertising at SAP, explores the importance of native advertising and brand journalism for driving enterprise growth in this interview with Media 7. Read on to find out how he did it at SAP.

Readers from all walks of life are demanding and for good reason. 

MEDIA 7: As an expert in this field, could you please tell us how important native advertising is for driving enterprise growth?
TIM CLARK:
It’s a key enabler for SAP Global Marketing and Advertising to generate awareness, brand lift and position SAP and its customers as innovative. Native Advertising bolsters ‘top of funnel’ awareness activities across SAP’s different lines of business and solution areas via creative storytelling and contextual advertising that compliments stories.


M7: During your career at SAP, you’ve launched SAP Business Trends on the SAP Community Network and SAPVoice on Forbes.com. Could you please tell us a little about them, and how they have helped drive the business forward?
TC:
SAP Business Trends was designed to bring non-technical stories to a very large and established technical community within SAP. By creating and publishing more content about business outcomes instead of IT implementations, we organically and authentically bridged these two audiences. Business Trends ultimately grew into a community within the community, hosting hundreds of internal and external contributors and influencers while driving tons of engagement and awareness. We also used Business Trends as a primary feeder channel to help get SAPVoice on Forbes.com off the ground.


By creating and publishing more content about business outcomes instead of IT implementations, we organically and authentically bridged audiences.

SAP was the very first advertiser to partner with Forbes on BrandVoice and we co-developed the platform with them; publishing content, testing different methods and providing feedback. This, very important gestation period, allowed me to bring a much-needed editorial mindset into the mix. As our storytelling improved, readers became much more engaged and the rest, as they say, is history. We’ve settled into a nice groove of publishing around 30-40 stories per month around topics near and dear to SAP: Sustainability, Future of Work, Customer Experience, Intelligent Enterprise and Purpose.

Monthly, quarterly and year-end performance reports consistently prove our content is doing its job, performing high above Forbes and industry benchmarks. Perhaps more importantly, our contributors continue to reply on the SAPVoice platform for their individual and team needs to help launch campaigns and create a consistent drumbeat of awareness to help drive registrations and start conversations with customers. We’re not done growing. We recently launched a Regional News section that more accurately reflects topics that are top-of-mind in the UK, India, Australia and New Zealand. At different times, we also partnered with The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company and Inc. to help round out our native advertising efforts.

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Readers want to be enlightened, inspired and entertained.

M7: You have advised your team to, “Tell the story you want to tell, not the story you think you should tell.” How do you align this line of thought with the content demands of your readers?
TC:
Readers from all walks of life are demanding and for good reason. They want to be enlightened, inspired and entertained. They do not tolerate stories that are promotional or laced with confusing marketing jargon and buzzwords. That’s why it’s so important for SAP's employee brand journalists to create stories in their own voice that add a unique perspective and not just add to the noise. Light mentions of SAP and meaningful connections back to the business are always encouraged, but it can’t be heavy-handed.


M7: According to you, what are the best writing practices that generate results across blog channels?
TC:
I recently wrote about this very same topic for our Forbes SAPVoice channel to commemorate our 10-year anniversary.

The five steps I highlight are:

  • Cultivate talent in-house
  • Know your audience
  • Make headlines
  • Take care of business
  • Push boundaries

Media 7 readers can check out the full story here: “5 Tips For Starting A Brand Journalism Revolution.

ABOUT SAP

With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, SAP helps the world run better and improve people’s lives. SAP innovations help thousands of customers worldwide work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively.

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PR Newswire | January 05, 2024

TripleLift, the ad tech platform elevating digital advertising across every screen, and Reset Digital, a first-of-its-kind platform that gives brands and publishers broader and deeper audience reach across all communities, today announced a partnership to significantly expand diverse spend and representation across the programmatic ecosystem. Together, the companies are offering advertisers multiple pathways to ensure a greater portion of their digital budgets can be directed toward diverse-owned media companies. The partnership allows advertisers to buy quality inventory from minority-owned businesses throughout the programmatic ecosystem: TripleLift (a SSP) and Reset Digital (a DSP), and TripleLift's UNREP (Underrepresented Voices) deal package of impressions directing dollars straight to minority-owned media publishers. This way of buying media is available immediately across display, online video, and CTV and will be launched with Native this year. In 2023, an ANA survey of certified diverse suppliers found that while a majority say that interest from the media and advertising community in supporting diverse suppliers has increased in the past year, there is still a gap between intent to spend and actual spend. TripleLift and Reset Digital are helping all stakeholders bridge the gap quickly by making it easy for them to access diverse-owned media at scale. "This partnership allows advertisers to achieve their diverse spend goals with an end-to-end solution that is more aligned with their corporate supplier diversity reporting requirements," said Thomas Brandon, VP of Agency Strategy and Economic Inclusion at TripleLift. "Importantly, it allows them to use their media spend to impact the economic growth of the diverse communities they serve." Over the last 12 years, TripleLift has cultivated a vast inventory of publishers that includes access to 220 billion monthly impression avails across diverse-owned sites as part of its UNREP curated packages. These packages include inventory among publishers owned by Women, LGBTQ+, Blacks, Latinx, and Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI) and can be accessed as a whole or individually depending on client goals. "TripleLift has been on our radar for a partnership for some time," said Charles Cantu, founder and CEO of Reset Digital. "Specifically, our marketplace combined with their offerings like UNREP now provides a single pathway to diverse spending across the programmatic ecosystem – a solution we are excited to finally have in the market together." Reset Digital, the industry's only verified, black-owned and operated DSP, has been long recognized for its neuroprogrammatic capabilities, which allow advertisers to engage audiences based on what they desire versus what they look like, its ability to help connect brands and multicultural audiences around the world and its partnerships with brands like P&G, GM and Verizon, as well as the leading global media and creative agencies. In 2023, Reset Digital launched a new programmatic marketplace for the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), a trade organization that represents more than 200 Black-owned newspapers in the U.S. along with the NABOB (National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters); these entities created a path to connect large advertisers with publications that previously did not have the capabilities to run national programmatic advertising campaigns. This partnership stands to benefit any of the buy-side clients working with these companies. "TripleLift and Reset Digital have both been great partners to Horizon Media for many years," said Karina Dobarro, EVP, Multicultural at Horizon Media. "We've long worked with DSPs and SSPs to better direct investment to diverse-owned media, but partnerships like this one make it a much more seamless endeavor." TripleLift works with 80%+ of comScore 200 ad-supported publishers and delivers over 2 trillion monthly global impressions across North America, EMEA, LATAM, APAC, and MENA. To learn more about this partnership, please visit www.triplelift.com. About TripleLift We're TripleLift, an advertising platform on a mission to elevate digital advertising through beautiful creative, quality publishers, actionable data, and smart targeting. Through over 1 trillion monthly ad transactions, we help publishers and platforms monetize their businesses. Our technology is where the world's leading brands find audiences across online video, connected television, display, and native ads. Brand and enterprise customers choose us because of our innovative solutions, premium formats, and supportive experts dedicated to maximizing their performance. We are part of the Vista Equity Partners portfolio. As an NMSDC certified minority-owned business, we qualify for diverse spending goals and are committed to economic inclusion. Find out how TripleLift raises up the programmatic ecosystem at triplelift.com. About Reset Digital Reset Digital's Neuroprogrammatic™ advertising platform is a first-of-its-kind programmatic platform that allows brands to engage omnichannel audiences based on what motivates them as people versus targets and gives brands and publishers much broader and deeper audience reach across all communities, including underrepresented audiences they could not reach in the past. The results are radically better outcomes. Reset Digital's partners include the world's top brands, agencies, and publishers, including P&G, GM, Verizon, Dentsu, IPG, Publicis, GroupM, NABOB, Newsweek, NNPA, and others.

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Ad Tech and Martech

SugarCRM Announces 2024 Customer Breakthrough Award Winners

Business Wire | January 24, 2024

SugarCRM, provider of the award-winning AI-driven sales automation platform, today announced the global winners of the 2024 SugarCRM Customer Breakthrough Awards. Winners are: Customer Experience Breakthrough Award – Empresas ADOC, a Central American retail company, is recognized for using SugarCRM to drive business growth and improve customer engagement. Using SugarCRM, the company significantly improved customer service quality and customer retention, reduced customer churn while establishing its “Puntos ADOC” loyalty program that attracted over 600,000 members, representing more than 20 percent of total sales. ADOC has a rich history of using high-quality materials and specialized techniques to produce outstanding products that meet the needs of its customers. ADOC is a customer-driven business supported by a culture dedicated to enhancing customer satisfaction and building strong, lasting customer relationships. In addition to its own branded footwear, ADOC also has partnered with international brands, including Hush Puppies, The North Face, CAT, and Steve Madden, to create a complete shopping experience for its customers. Industry Excellence Breakthrough Award – Reusable Transport Packaging, a leader in sustainable transport packaging solutions, is recognized for using SugarCRM to improve its bottom line, unify customer data, streamline processes, and increase sales efficiency, resulting in a 20 percent revenue growth year over year. A key strategy in its growth is the use of Sugar Market for regular email communications, which keeps customers, distributors, and leads informed about new products, pricing updates, and other relevant industry news. Marketing Excellence Breakthrough Award – The Swedish Institute (SI), a Swedish government agency, is recognized for its innovative approach to data management and customer engagement. The Sugar Sell and Sugar Market platform integration centralizes data, segments audiences, and automates responses, significantly enhancing marketing efficiency and improving engagement with international students and alumni. The Swedish Institute saw an increase of over 31 percent in lead volume since implementing SugarCRM and boasts a best-in-class 40-to-50 percent open rate on marketing emails. Sales Excellence Breakthrough Award – J&J Ventures Gaming, LLC, a leader in gaming and amusements and one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S., is recognized for implementing Sugar Sell to consolidate customer accounts and interactions into a centralized communication hub across sales, marketing, and account management. Streamlined sales processes have established a new model for sales excellence for the J&J team and its growth in the gaming industry. Service Excellence Breakthrough Award – Super General Company of the Albatha Group in the UAE is recognized for revolutionizing its service operations with Sugar Serve. Working with Sugar partner Ambit Software, Super General successfully implemented a repair and maintenance service platform, including a field management application for efficient case handling and simplified technician dispatching. Due to increased efficiency and workload management, the number of cases per technician has surged by up to 26 percent, alongside a 10 percent increase in first-time fix rates. Other notable achievements include a significant increase in call closure rates and substantial improvements in customer satisfaction scores. Customer of the Year Breakthrough Award (Asia Pacific) – zazen Water, a provider of alkaline water solutions in Australia, is recognized for its use of SugarCRM to support business growth and customer satisfaction. Through strategic integrations, zazen Water automated its business and customer service operations to streamline high-order volume processing. Notably, during its Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2023 campaign, zazen Water managed a significant order peak, accomplishing its same-day dispatch promise, which, prior to automation and integration projects, would have required 16 employees. Customer of the Year Breakthrough Award (EMEA) – FAMO GmbH & Co. KG, a German wholesaler of electrical and plumbing products, is recognized for its collaboration with Sugar partner Insignio to deploy SugarCRM for advanced customer data management and opportunity nurturing, the Sugar mobile app with enterprise resource planning (ERP) data integration for field sales support, and Sugar Market for automated newsletters and targeted communications. Customer of the Year Breakthrough Award (Latin America) – Mac Construtora e Incorporadora (MAC), a leader in construction and development in São Paulo, is recognized for the creative use of SugarCRM in the dynamic real estate market. Technology adoption significantly improved lead management and customer engagement, enhancing marketing approaches and project sales, resulting in a substantial increase in sales, ranging from 50 to 94 percent of its real estate agency. This has led to MAC substantially reducing its dependence on partnering with other real estate agencies. Customer of the Year Breakthrough Award (North America) – Alto-Shaam, providing foodservice equipment solutions to more than 90 countries globally, is recognized for use of SugarCRM to significantly enhance opportunity close rates by 61 percent while achieving up to 600 hours of time savings in marketing and sales efforts to forecast customer needs. The integration of Sugar Sell with Sugar Market has streamlined key processes, improved lead management, and enhanced operational efficiency and global communication. ISV Technology Partnership Breakthrough Award – FSIoffice, a leading independent office supply company, together with sales-i, are recognized for transforming FSIoffice’s CRM strategy from data repository to sales powerhouse, with 40 percent improved sales efficiency. Supported by Sugar partner CRM International, FSIoffice is driving remarkable revenue growth and enhancing customer engagement with Sugar Sell Premier and sales-i for predictive business-to-business sales intelligence. Reseller Technology Partnership Breakthrough Award – The Joint Corp., the nation’s largest provider of chiropractic care through The Joint Chiropractic® network, in partnership with Sugar partner Faye, are recognized for driving significant improvements in healthcare operations after transitioning to SugarCRM and Amazon Web Services, with a 40 percent increase in web transaction speed. This transformation allowed The Joint to focus on integrating AI to elevate SugarCRM from a functional tool to a strategic platform for competitive differentiation in the chiropractic care sector. Judges’ Choice Award – RTCR, the public transit provider in La Rochelle, France, operating under the Yélo brand, is recognized for significantly enhancing customer service with Sugar Serve, with implementation support by Sugar partner Synolia. The deployment has led to a minimum three percent increase in customer satisfaction and streamlined complaint management, saving agents’ time by 50 percent through improved response structuring. “We’re pleased to announce the winners of the 2024 SugarCRM Customer Breakthrough Awards,” said Chris Pennington, Chief Customer Officer, SugarCRM. “These customers and partners are recognized for excellence and innovation in letting Sugar’s AI-driven CRM platform do the work to make the hard things easier for sales, marketing and service professionals, and for driving breakthrough success and exceptional customer experiences.” About SugarCRM SugarCRM is a CRM software that helps marketing, sales, and service teams reach peak efficiency through better automation, data, and intelligence so they can achieve a real-time, reliable view of each customer. Sugar’s platform provides leading technology in the sales automation, marketing automation, and customer service fields with one goal in mind: to make the hard things easier. Thousands of companies in over 120 countries rely on Sugar by letting the platform do the work. Headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sugar is backed by Accel-KKR.

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SAP is a global software application vendor. SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world’s transaction revenue touches an SAP system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced...

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