Q&A with Tom Logan, Co-Founder & CEO at Cohley

Tom Logan, Co-Founder & CEO at Cohley, is a Tech guy, a Sports Writer, and a Rom-Com lover. He helps to dictate Cohley's direction, monitor and emphasize its culture, and puts his colleagues in the best possible positions to succeed.

MEDIA 7: How did you come up with the idea of founding Cohley?
TOM LOGAN:
The idea started to take shape while my co-founder Erik and I were working at a startup called Piqora, where we were focused on helping brands discover, get rights to, and utilize user-generated content (UGC). That content primarily consisted of smartphone photos posted on Instagram by brands’ consumers.

But there were a variety of challenges associated with that process, primarily around timing, content quality, and legalities.
It was right around the time that Piqora was acquired by a company called Olapic that Erik and I observed a major spike in the influencer marketing industry.

Don’t obsess over writing the perfect piece, the writings that go viral and take you to the next level of clout are very likely not the ones that you’d expect.



M7: What channels do you think are the most relevant for content marketing? How do you gauge which ones are the most promising, given your target customers?
TL:
For Cohley, it’s all about having a presence where our target customers spend time. We work hard to produce original blog content that can be shared on LinkedIn, for example, and we’ll focus on the types of topics that are relevant to our buyer personas. What most companies do, which is the opposite of Hubspot’s blog (for example), is produce content that talks about how great they are. Okay, that’s cool, but how does this help me solve my most pressing challenges?!

M7: What are the major advertising and marketing tools you use to hike up the brand awareness of your company?
TL:
We run a variety of social demand gen campaigns using a tool called Metadata.io (would highly recommend). Reachdesk is another one that we’ve leaned into more as of late. It’s essentially a gifting platform to sprinkle a bit of TLC on prospective clients, and the gifts include things like Cohley cupcakes, wine tasting kits, spa treatments, etc.
As always there’s no replacement for testing a variety of different campaigns and initiatives and using data (not gut feel!) to inform ongoing content strategy.


There’s no replacement for testing a variety of different campaigns and initiatives and using data to inform ongoing content strategy.



M7: What are your best practices for creating content that caters to the customers’ interests?
TL:
Make it about them! 80% of buyers are considered “away” buyers, meaning that they’re buying to get away from a pressing pain point (or points). “Towards” buyers are your early adopters who want to be the first in line to try something new, regardless of social proof points.

M7: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your work - what day to day processes have you had to re-tool to be able to pull them off remotely?
TL:
Beyond the obvious ones, more time on Zoom, etc., we realized that we needed to stop assuming our same communication channels and structures would hold up in fully remote work (they didn’t’). Our leadership team in particular has been hyper-specific and almost overcommunicated at times to avoid misalignment, particularly among team leads and their team’s initiatives.


Test, test, and test some more! Be active on Twitter, and know your target audience.



M7: Your advice to the professional writers for effective content curation?
TL:
Test, test, and test some more! Don’t obsess over writing the perfect piece, the writings that go viral and take you to the next level of clout are very likely not the ones that you’d expect. Be active on Twitter, and know your target audience to a T. Jason Lemkin and the team at SaaStr come to mind as writers that truly “get it.”

ABOUT COHLEY

Cohley is an NYC-based tech startup that’s changing the way that brands and agencies generate and test content. Cohley’s aim is to continue to help the world’s best brands generate the content that they need through vetted 3rd party creators, allowing those brands to generate high volumes of diverse, actionable content for a fraction of the cost. 

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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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