In the competitive online environment of today, a solid content strategy is necessary for every WordPress site that wants to make its mark. Blogging is only one component of an effective content strategy; the approach also includes gaining knowledge of your target demographic, developing appealing material, and ensuring that it reaches and resonates with that group. This article takes a comprehensive look at how to develop and implement a successful content strategy for WordPress websites, including production, maintenance, and optimization of the material.

Understanding Your Audience

The first thing you need to do when developing a content strategy is get a solid grasp of your target demographic. Carry out market research, examine site statistics, and engage in direct conversation with your audience to get insights into their preferences, interests, and issues. It might be helpful to create thorough audience personas to visualize the perfect reader. This can make it simpler to adjust content such that it connects with the ideal reader. In addition to keeping up with the ever-shifting requirements and preferences of your audience, knowing them inside and out is essential to ensure that your content remains pertinent and interesting over time.

– Jeremy Ferguson, Owner of PixelPoynt SEO Agency

Setting Clear Content Goals

Define objectives for your content that are SMART, which stands for precise, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. These goals might include everything from boosting organic traffic and moving up the ranks in search engines to boosting user engagement and generating leads. Your content goals should be in line with your overall company goals to provide a clear direction for the content development efforts you are putting forward. For a content strategy to be dynamic and effective, these goals must be reviewed and modified regularly in response to analytics and input from the audience.

– Micajah McGregor, Chief Editor at FanFest

Content Strategy, Planning, and Scheduling

It is necessary to have a content schedule that has been carefully designed to keep the flow of material even and continuous. This calendar has to include significant dates for the release of content, topics, and many forms of material (blog posts, videos, podcasts, etc.).

When designing content, it is important to take into account audience interests, seasonality, and industry events. It is possible to utilize WordPress plugins or third-party applications like Trello and Asana to schedule and monitor the progress of content creation. Maintaining the currency and usefulness of your website is accomplished by the routine maintenance of the content calendar.

– Craig Campbell, Owner of HARO Link Building

Creating High-Quality and Relevant Content

High-quality content should be interesting to the reader, provide relevant information, and be beneficial to the audience. Your primary focus should be on the creation of original content that answers the concerns of your audience, provides solutions to the difficulties they face, or entertains them.

This objective may be accomplished via the use of a variety of forms, including how-to manuals, articles demonstrating thought leadership, case studies, or interactive media. Make sure that your material has been thoroughly researched, and fact-checked, and that it represents the tone and style of your company. Not only does material of high quality attract and keep the attention of audience members, but it also promotes your website as a reliable source within its particular field.

– Edward Mellett, Co-founder at TestHQ

Optimizing for SEO

“The practice of search engine optimization (SEO) is necessary if you want more people to see your content. Use keywords that are related to your material in a natural way, optimize your photos, and arrange your content using headers to make it more readable and easier for search engines to index. Plugins for WordPress such as Yoast SEO may direct you through the process of improving each article. Keep in mind that search engine optimization (SEO) also entails boosting your website’s performance and responsiveness on mobile devices because these characteristics have a big influence on search rankings.”

– Josh Thill, Founder of Thrive Engine

Leveraging Multimedia and Visuals

The appeal of your material, as well as the amount of interaction it generates, may be considerably boosted by the addition of multimedia components such as photographs, videos, and infographics. Make use of high-quality pictures that are pertinent to the material you are presenting to complement and support it.

Your posts may be easily enhanced thanks to WordPress’ wide range of editing tools and plugins, which also make it simple to incorporate multimedia content. In addition, making sure that these graphical components are optimized for quick loading times and are accessible by using the appropriate alt language and descriptions is vital for search engine optimization as well as the user experience.

– Marie Ysais, Founder of Ysais Digital Marketing

Promoting Content Across Channels

Promotion of your material is essential if you want it to be seen by a larger number of people. Spread the word about your material by publishing it on various social media platforms, sending it out via email newsletters, and working together with influencers and other websites operating in the same field as yours. Adjust the material so that it is appropriate for the layout and tone of each platform.

For instance, you might develop intriguing summaries for the posts you make on social media or through conversations for the email newsletters you send out. Building a community around your content may also be assisted by actively engaging with your audience via the use of these platforms and reacting to their comments and suggestions.

– Eran Mizrahi, CEO of Ingredient Brothers

Engaging with Your Audience

Participating actively in conversations with one’s audience helps to cultivate a feeling of community as well as loyalty. You should encourage people to leave comments on your blog and then actively reply to those remarks. It may be helpful to collect comments and suggestions for new material by conducting polls, surveys, or question-and-answer sessions. Engaging with your audience on social media and even in offline settings may offer you useful insights into their preferences and help you refine your content strategy. This can be done in several different contexts.

– Shannon Coventry, Marketing Manager at First Vehicle Leasing

Measuring and Analyzing Performance

Tracking the performance of your content may be done with the help of technologies such as Google Analytics. Page views, bounce rate, average time spent on a page, and conversion rate are some of the most important metrics to concentrate on. When these indicators are analyzed, one may gain insights into the sorts of material that are most engaging, the ideal times to post, and areas in which there is room for development. Reviewing these indicators regularly enables data-driven improvements to be made to your content strategy, which in turn ensures that it will continue to be effective and relevant.

Conclusion

Understanding your audience, producing material of excellent quality, optimizing it for search engines, and actively connecting with that audience are all essential components of an efficient content strategy. It is important to provide value constantly and to be flexible in response to the shifting requirements and preferences of your audience.

If site owners using WordPress follow these criteria, they will be able to establish a content strategy that not only increases engagement and traffic but also helps them achieve their overarching business goals. Keep in mind that if you want to be successful in the realm of content over the long term, development and adaptation are essential.

The post Effective Content Strategy for WordPress Sites: Developing and Implementing a Successful Content Strategy appeared first on Botsify.

Finally, we got a chance to come across a techie person who was struggling when he was 8. From a very young age, he learned computer coding and since then his process of learning is still going on. He has been a bibliophile since a very young age. But interestingly, when he was 15, he built many products from idea to distribution and monetization. (That’s ah-mah-zing).

Meet him, the most proficient and upbeat Aminadav Glickshtein–a Manager. Hire Full-stack Developer. Block-chain Security “hands-on” Architect at EY. Aminadav executed multiple projects and worked with leading organizations. His victories are still going on. His expertise lies in different technical domains and programming languages. (E.g. JavaScript & NodeJS, Go, Python, PHP, Java, VBA).

Moreover, he always searches for  technical solutions to any challenge to make things better and easiest by the help of AI and machine learning. Aminadav is self-taught and His never-ending research makes him curious about technology. He found opportunities to learn from a single paper or even from every person. 

Let’s dive in and know more about him and his work.

Botsify: Hello Aminadav, we’re all really excited to have you here today. Tell us something about your career, how you start with Block-chain and AI, and what complications and hurdles you faced while developing your career?

Aminadav: Let’s make the long story short. At the age of 7, I had a dream to build a computer on my own. It was not as simple as today. On every card and hard-disk, there were small jumpers that you needed to know precisely how to connect them. It’s like a way of encoding instructions for the cards to not have conflicts with each other. It was very complicated. Don’t ask me how, but I exploded my pc. Literally, smoke in all the whose, the electricity goes down. My father, instead of being angry, he supported me. I continued to do hardware and software experiments. At the age of 9, I used Qbasic to develop software for my school. It had a phone book, a homework manager, a small game, and some more features.

Let skip 15 years of full-stack development. Six years ago, I found that everyone around me is speaking about the Blockchain, and I was interested to learn what it is. In my nature, I can’t have the feeling of understanding something before I deep dive and understand it in all the details until I can develop one by myself. I started to learn about Bitcoin, smart contracts, Zero-knowledge proof, and many more subjects. I built algo-trading bots, developed a secure exchange. I found vulnerabilities in smart contracts (and reported them).

You also asked about AI. I started when I was the CTO of GiftWizard. We had to develop an engine to recommend users what gifts to buy for their family & friends. We had a massive amount of data, and the app needed to give the best recommendation for each buyer. It was based on Facebook likes & comments, and previous purchases.

Botsify: We have seen in your profile that you have developed many technical products and we are really very interested to know about these products. Tell us more in detail about those products?

Aminadav: I’m an entrepreneur. I had products that downloaded millions of times, but for this blog, I would like to focus on a small chatbot I developed. The reason is that this chatbot was the first app that I switched to chatbot technology. I found that users much better like it. No learning-curve no support. So easy to use.

I created a chatbot to manage double parking spots. In short, every driver tells the chatbots where he parked, and if you blocked someone and he needs to exit before you, that chatbot will ask you to move your car. So simple, and a lot of people are using it daily. No registration, no download, it’s working directly from WhatsApp.

Botsify: Before moving forward to know more about your technical specialties and views let’s talk a little bit about your favoritism So, What is your favorite destination? Do you want to work in that place, or have you set up your mind that this is the dream destination where you work calmly and gain much profit?

Aminadav: My dream is to sit in a lone-island surrounded by the ocean, and play with my children. At the same time, my own chatbot is replying to people, advising them, helping them, developing, and doing all my work. 

Until the chatbot will be ready, I’m trying to develop and create technology that connects people. 

“Success comes from creating a masterpiece every day. No one cared that Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling for four years in such an awkward position it permanently damaged his health.” – That’s a quote from an article called “Success is Living Like Your Cat”. 

Botsify: So among all the struggles, there is a game-changing masterpiece. So what is your masterpiece product which makes you successful among all other full-stack developers?

Aminadav: When I was 11 years old, I wanted to learn JavaScript. I didn’t speak English at all, anyway, I printed the full documentation (from MSDN) of the JavaScript language, in my father’s office. And I learned it slowly-slowly page-by-page, using a Hebrew-English dictionary. I learned JavaScript and English at the same time. Since then, every new thing I would like to learn, before reading articles, or books, before watching tutorials, I’m starting with the full documentation and force myself to understand everything. I believe that my wish to understand things deeply, helping me today to debug and find better solutions.

Botsify: As we have gone through your profile you belong to a perfect technical background so can you please share a little bit of knowledge with us regarding artificial intelligence? How important is artificial intelligence in today’s world?

Aminadav: Today, we can say that our own lives are dependent on AI. When you are crossing the road, and a car is stopped, there is a high chance that the driver was in the middle of writing SMS, and he didn’t notice you by himself. So why did he stop? Because he has MobilEye, an AI system that sees you, and it alerts him. 

The truth is, almost every app can be more usable and smarter by using AI technology. Even a calculator. The app can learn about the users what each one needs, and to show him the best interface for him to accomplish his tasks.

Botsify: And one more question connected with the above questions popping up in my mind is that share some views about Future use and importance of artificial intelligence, and also share some AI products you like really much and want to acquire them in life?

Aminadav: It sounds strange, but I believe that people who don’t like to use technology nor install apps, or buying the newest gadget, will be the first one who would like to use AI. For using a chatbot, you don’t need to be smart, the chatbot needs to be smart. The user doesn’t need to install anything, just tell the bot what he needs. I’m sure that most of the apps we see today will be replaced with AI chatbots.

Botsify: You know what? If it comes to discussing artificial intelligence chatbot is the first AI tool popup in my mind, What are your thoughts about this AI tool? Chatbots are trending worldwide to automate customer support and products like Botsify are providing ease for everyone. What do you think businesses should consider Chatbots as a perfect virtual assistant in this sadly pandemic situation?

Aminadav: It’s an excellent question. I can answer from many perspectives. But let’s take one. Using AI chatbots solutions like Botsify, it’s much cheaper than hiring real customer support agents. Today many SMB can’t pay for employees so that Chatbots can help them in support for their end-users

Botsify: We know that you are a brilliant developer so you can answer this question perfectly If you want to develop a chatbot list the new feature you wanted to add in chatbots?

Aminadav: If I was a product manager of Google Assistant or Facebook Messenger, the first feature I will add is autocomplete. To help the users writing test messages to the bot. Sometimes, e.g., I need to know what the user’s address is or where he parked. I want that my users will be able to type, and I will give them instant results to choose from, like in Google search. 

In Facebook and Telegram, you have quick replies. That the users can choose, but auto-complete can give the user the option to select from a huge amount of possibilities, and help him to interact with the chatbot.

Botsify: As we already know you are a successful developer so tell us a little bit of your success story and achievements and also Quote your favorite thoughts that match a successful business insider that appeals to you so much.

Aminadav: I extremely took the Agile product development methodology. Every app that you will ask me to develop, probably I will develop the first draft version (Proof of concept)  in one day. 

Most of the people and usually stakeholders have no idea what they exactly need. Presentations, documents, meetings, customer surveys – doesn’t help. Only when they see a real app, that is working on the web, or on their mobile phone, they start to understand what to ask for. So it’s useless to talk too much about specifications, requirements, and technology. First, to create a POC, get feedback, fix, improve, change, and every day to release something. Don’t plan too much.

Of course, this can work better,  for someone who has enough experience with all areas of technology, he knows to do good refactoring, using the micro-services practice, and have an end-to-end developing experience.

Botsify: Finally last but not the least As you already know Botsify is an AI chatbot making platform What is your opinion about Botsify? We would love to have your feedback.

Aminadav: Botsify is an excellent product. Let’s focus on one important thing I found you have Integrate a chatbot into a website. There are many solutions for a chat on a website, or for creating chatbots for social media. But your service can give the users the option to create one bot, and use it on the website, and connect it to social media. I think it can be precious to the users.

Thank you so much for giving us your precious time. You even inspired our readers with your informative words and with your experience. 

The post An interview with Software developer & Blockchain Architect at EY, Aminadav Glickshtein appeared first on Botsify.

He is honored to be among such amazing people in EdTech Education advancement worldwide & to achieve 2nd position in Thinkers360 in the Top 50 Global Opinion Leaders and Influencers on EdTech.  

A highly trained, committed and enthusiastic team player with exceptional talents in leadership and communication. He is a highly motivated individual with the ability to adapt to changing situations seamlessly. He is a keynote speaker and trainer and delivered multiple Training (in EN & AR ) in AI, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, DLTs, FinTech, Blockchain Cybersecurity, and more.

Let’s talk with him!

Botsify: First of all, thank you for giving us your precious time. Let’s start with your career, how it started and what is the biggest achievement in your career till now?

Ramy: Thanks to having me and this great opportunity.

I Started my career in the computer domain before graduating from university, I was always aspiring to explore the newest forms of Technologies, and to make the best of the existing ones. Helping senior students in their graduation projects, Teaching in multiple training centers advance courses that I studied by myself during my free time.

Early 2000 I predicted that such evolution in the internet will definitely need more focus in Cybersecurity, which made me transform my career from Development & Programming to Network & Cybersecurity. And got my master’s degree in 2005.

This step made me a step ahead with the new trends of cyberwars and threats, and joined leader Cybersecurity companies (like its2, FireEye, Kaspersky ) to start my battle against these threats, and help raise awareness in this domain.

Mid 2015, I recognized that new trends are coming to the Technology Space, like Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, AI and Other Emerging Technologies. And with each new trend there will be new Threats for sure. Then I decided to merge my knowledge in Cybersecurity with these technologies, and try to build the best model of engagement or adaptations of these technologies in a safer way, by learning the core architecture of each technology, and build the knowledge base around how to secure them. This help me to participate in many organizations, institutes, research center across the globe to add my insights and tech the technologies in multiple levels. And with the time I was requested to participate in many Conferences, TV Interviews, Consulting Projects, and leading projects that will help doing great changes in our life.

Botsify: Congratulations Ramy, we are glad to see you in the top 50 global thoughts leader and influencer  EdTech list and we got the opportunity to talk with you about this.. How do you feel about this honor? Are these types of achievements the actual destination for which you are struggling in your life?

Ramy: Training, Awareness & building contents is something I was doing for more than 18 years, and even during my university study, It is a habit and passion. And I am trying these days to finalize a unique Platform built on a concept of doing game-changing ways for online training by merging multiple EdTech methodologies which will help people in the Online training business and make it smooth and valuable for all parties.

I was really happy & proud for such achievement by getting the 2nd place in top 50 global thoughts leader and influencer, which motivates me more in doing more contributions in this domain.

Botsify: Everyone is unique and different. What makes you different from others?

Ramy: I really enjoy learning new things, Technologies and merge my experience in all what I am learning to build unique and different approach in everything, 

Having my own startup gave me an opportunity to understand the ins-and-outs of the industry, and to take on tasks I might not have at a larger company. I think this experience gives me self confidence & not afraid of failure.

Botsify: As we have gone through your profile you belong to a perfect technical background so can you please share a little bit of knowledge with us regarding artificial intelligence? How important is artificial intelligence in today’s world?

Ramy: The world is fast evolving, with Artificial intelligence (AI) at the forefront in changing the world and the way we live. This means that with AI, many of our everyday activities can now be carried out effectively by programmed machine technology.

Artificial intelligence is impacting the future of virtually every industry and every human being. Artificial intelligence has acted as the main driver of emerging technologies like big data, robotics and IoT, and it will continue to act as a technological innovator for the foreseeable future.

AI technology is important because it enables human capabilities – understanding, reasoning, planning, communication and perception.

Botsify:  A study by Smart Insights shows that out of 100 leading marketers from different industries, 55% of companies are implementing or already considering using AI in their marketing practices. What do you think which AI tool is best or making ways easy to approach the customers? 

Ramy: AI is beginning to embed itself into all aspects of our lives. From the growing number of self-checkout cash registers to advanced security checks at the airport; artificial intelligence is just about everywhere.

Major tech firms such as Facebook, IBM and Yahoo have already publicly expressed their focus on developing artificial intelligence as a new source of business.

Many eCommerce businesses are already using forms of AI to better understand their customers, generate new leads and provide an enhanced customer experience.

The main Tools that must be needed in every ecommerce business today is the Bot Technology, because it will help in many customer experiences like Customer service, Sales bots, Bill payment bots, Voice bots for telephone, customer service, Live chat Helpdesk.

Botsify: If it comes to discussing artificial intelligence, chatbot is the first AI tool popup in my mind, What are your thoughts about this AI tool? 

Ramy: AI-powered Natural Language Processing, or NLP, enables chatbots to mimic human conversation. They can identify the underlying intent behind the text a real person types, then deliver a response that matches that intent.

Plus, chatbots with NLP can now “learn” from past conversations and improve their ability to provide appropriate responses and solutions. And with this advanced level of processing, they’re becoming extremely helpful in customer service situations.

Botsify: Right now, you are the founder of TrustyCrypto and I think this is the new project that is coming soon. So, what comes to you to initiate this project? Tell me about your expected goal behind this.

Ramy: When I joined the Emerging Technology Domain back in 2015, and got engaged with a lot of projects or consulting services, specially in Cryptocurrency, I found this domain need a lot of attentions specially for the people are have no knowledge in it, and like to invest or be part of this era hype. This Domain is full of Scams, fake projects, hackers after your cryptocurrency money. 

Then my Idea of this Startup came up to introduce a multi-tier trusty ecosystems to address unsolved questions of threats and scams by having a clear directions and guidance to people in the domain throw ( Knowledge, Training, Awareness, Process, Service, & Investigation Tools ) that can be used throw flexible subscription model.

Currently we are working with many Regulators, International Investigation companies, Industry experts and many other parties to build such an ecosystem.

Botsify: Cyber systems are complex adaptive systems that we have tried to understand and tackle using more traditional theories. But now, AI around us, so which type of AI applications are being used in cyber security solutions?

Ramy: Cyber security companies are teaching AI systems to detect viruses and malware by using complex algorithms so AI can then run pattern recognition in software. This allows cyber security firms to stay updated on the latest risks and time frames and build responsive strategies to keep organizations protected.

The role of machine learning (ML) in cybersecurity is growing and has now become more proactive. With ML, cybersecurity becomes simpler, more effective, and, at the same time, less expensive. From a rich dataset, ML develops patterns and manipulates them with algorithms. This way, it can anticipate and respond to active attacks in real-time.

AI/ML enables instantaneous automation, completing tasks that would typically take days for humans, in a matter of seconds. The magnitude of ‘cybersecurity’ makes it infeasible for professionals to rigorously manage all aspects of it, particularly when massive amounts of data are involved. By incorporating automation, professionals can focus on anomalies and large-scale threats whilst AI focuses on the data heavy or repetitive tasks.

Botsify: According to your experience, is it possible to detect cyber attacks before they happen?

Ramy: Current prediction tools are limited

Various methods for the prediction of cyber attacks have been designed in the past, but with limited success. Prediction based on network vulnerabilities can be effective but requires up-to-date knowledge of the network, which is challenging.

Predictive analytics is the science that is gaining momentum in helping to determine the probability of attacks against organizations and agencies and set up defenses before cybercriminals reach their perimeters. Already, several cybersecurity vendors are embracing this technology as the core of their security offering.

Botsify: What should be the upcoming AI tool that will give a boost in this technical era? 

Ramy: Emotion recognition and computer vision will scale and AI can help future servicing interactions with emotion detection and emergent responses to the mood of the customer (damage control in some situations, upsell in other cases). 

Botsify: Quote your words that motivates our reader. And if you feel comfortable, share your images at your workplace or any of your favorite places.

Ramy:  

“Try Not to Become a Man of Success Only, Rather Become a Man of Value.”

Many thanks for giving us your precious time. You even inspired our readers with your informative words and your experience. 

The post An Interview with CTO of Glory Think Group, Ramy AlDamati appeared first on Botsify.

He indulges in technology and digital business ideas that leverage their customers. He is a well-known spokesperson for his visionary thought and leadership in Artificial Intelligence, Data, Blockchain, Core Frameworks, and hybrid cloud solutions.

I can’t resist myself to share more about him as he is also a community leader, a speaker, an influencer, an author, a mentor, a social media evangelist. He works to encourage networking and opportunities for technological leaders and new talents to develop.

Botsify: Hi Thomas, It is an honor for me to have discussion with you, thank you for giving us your precious time. Let’s start with your career. Tell us about your success journey at the prior stage and the major responsibilities about your current designation. 

Thomas: Thank you for having me. I studied computer science with a focus on mathematics – very technical indeed, but I also spent some time on language, literature and philosophy. At the end of my study, I had the opportunity to apply IT technology for biology and life science. This broad background enabled me to start my career as a technical expert in IBM 25 years ago and also enabled me to grow that career to become a community leader, a speaker, an influencer, an author, a mentor, a social media enthusiast. It is all about inspiring people about digital innovation and how applied technology and architecture fuels that. All together enabled me to become an IBM Distinguished Engineer and brought me to my current CTO Hardware Sales EMEA role, which covers many clients in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Botsify: You have been working at IBM for 25 years. It is amazing to have such experience at one place. How much have you grown professionally and what exposure have you got under the roof of IBM? 

 Thomas: As a curious person and as a person who stretches the comfort zone, I was lucky to have steady growth on a personal and on a professional side. You need exposures and you need to go to your limits in order to grow. I jumped into several cold waters, just starting in the first month at IBM when our sales team for a large client struggled to establish a modem connection within that client. These situations continued over the years with new challenges and unforeseen issues that needed creative solutions. The work at IBM continued to stay interesting, rich and inspiring, and the best is yet to come.  

Botsify: IBM has a vast line of products including cloud and AI. IBM Watson is also famous from the start. Would you like to share IBM upcoming products for AI? 

Thomas: IBM is a strong promoter of AI from Research, Development to implementation of AI at scale. IBM is integrating AI everywhere, in the cloud and at the edge, as a service or as a software delivery, within the IBM technology and hardware platforms which all together enables broad innovation based on all kinds of data. IBM is steadily innovating the technology base and the product and services portfolio using Hybrid Cloud and AI as strategic fields. One specific area of the future of computing are the neurons (besides bits and qubits), which will contribute to exponential growth of AI abilities in the next decade. 

Botsify: How will you describe the passionate work for a top cloud company as you spent almost 25 years. What advice you will give to budding technical people.

 Thomas: Be open, be a learner, be positive, never give up, ask for mentoring and become a mentor for others, grow your professional network and aim for sustainability in all your activities, including your mental health

Botsify: Let’s talk about AI chatbots, research says, “In this way, by 2020, 85% of all customer interactions will be handled without a human agent, helping businesses to cut costs by $8 billion”. What are your thoughts about this research? 

Thomas: There is clearly a huge potential to improve the customer experience and add value for many business situations. I do not see that cost cutting should be the only target. It is part of a balanced effort to improve the quality of the interaction while also improving the efficiency. The best results come from smart intelligent interactions assisted by AI bots well integrated with some human interactions, who also have the best information on the customer situation based on AI and data.

Botsify: In January 2018, IBM introduced the world’s smallest computer. Tell me about that invention, what is the core concept behind it and how people get benefited with that smallest computer up till now?

Thomas: This smallest computer has been described in the context of crypto anchors, “IBM researchers are developing crypto-anchors, tamper-proof digital fingerprints, to be embedded into products, or parts of products, and linked to the blockchain. These fingerprints can take many forms such as tiny computers or optical codes, but when they are tied to a blockchain, they represent a powerful means of proving a product’s authenticity.” In that context, these computers are smaller than a grain of salt and with the cost of a few cents are helping authenticity of products and could reduce product fraud or enhance trust for many aspects of life.   

Botsify: Decision making is a risky task as anyone knows about it. As a CTO, what about your decision making style when you are taking steps over new initiatives.

Thomas: Information is key for good decisions. As humans, we have our reasoning and our intuition. The reasoning side of decisions, the facts, are necessary for understanding the options and to explain decisions afterwards, but your brain knows more than just the facts and you can rely on the balance between reasoning and intuition. Some decisions need some time, for those I need to sleep one night in order to let the intuition figure out what is right or wrong. But intuition can also be very quick, enabling you to take (smaller) decisions in a few seconds, based on data that your brain has already collected without reasoning.

Botsify: Tell us about your last memorable book and favorite place to escape and refuel?

Thomas: I really love the books of Yuval Noah Harari like Sapiens, Homo Deus and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. Yuval Harari explains the history of humans, what makes us so special as a species and describes our future as humans. He describes AI and biotechnology as strong factors for the future with all the consequences that that has.

Botsify: Before AI, many companies didn’t focus on Data storage approach. AI is helping companies with data analytics and helping in making decisions. Do you think every company should adopt this approach?

Thomas: I had many opportunities to work with organizations who saw the role and value of data decades ago and continued to enhance the data storage strategy over time. Coming from the core business data like customers, contracts, products, suppliers etc. – they extend the data strategy by leveraging analytics and AI on more and more data for the whole organization, from research and development to sales and marketing to customer support. AI especially opened the use of non-structured data like language, images and videos. And yes, nearly every company should establish and evolve a data and AI approach, to gain competitive advantage in a quickly changing market environment. This approach needs to include good data protection, as data becomes more critical and valuable and cyber threats are increasing.

 Botsify: As people trying to maximize usage of AI technology, what do you think about the upcoming grand innovation would be?

 Thomas: AI as a key part of data science will contribute to more knowledge out of data and to more intelligence in processes. In the last years, the automotive industry pushed the boundaries with the development of autonomous vehicles. In many industries, trained AI models will be deployed massively into all kinds of environments. There is a prediction that in the next five years, 80% of the AI computation will be performed at the edge, which means close to the location where things happen and where data is generated. I personally see significant grand innovations in medicine and life sciences because there is so much more data including genomic data, that we will see a big shift towards precision medicine based on AI and data.

 Botsify: Companies are adopting AI methods but still there’s a huge gap in AI adoption. What are the roadblock companies are facing to implement AI? How IBM is helping companies to adopt this approach?

 Thomas: The “cognitive enterprise” has a huge potential and adoption is done step by step. The ingredients are theoretically available – hybrid cloud platforms, next generation applications, the data and the exponential technologies have evolved over the last years and are still improving. A specific roadblock is the lack of skills and experts to implement all valuable steps towards the digital future. IBM is helping companies with technology, expertise and services to help with the implementation steps.

 Botsify: What would you like to do beside your work that please you the most? 

Thomas: Besides my family, my aspiration to include sport and movement into my life, and my strong interest in food, I’m excited about music. I really enjoy playing guitar and bass and I’m eager to learn more about melody and harmony and rhythm and improve my skills as a musician.

Botsify: Multiple chatbot platforms like Botsify and Watson assistant work to optimize communication between customers. What more exciting features can be added in chatbots to optimize chat automation experiences. We would love to add your feature ideas in Botsify.

 Thomas: Chatbots may adapt individually to the personality of the person it interacts with. And chatbots may also use good humor in the interactions.

Botsify: If you feel comfortable, share your images or videos at your workplace. We are super excited to do a quick tour of IBM. 

 Thomas: We created a video about German Graduates, most parts taken in the IBM Ehningen Office, where I have my shared office space. The videos were taken at our Spectrum Scale Strategy Days in February 2020, just before the COVID-19 lockdown in Germany. We all hope that we can get back normal at some time in the future.

More impressions are here: https://www.ibm.com/ibm/clientcenter/all-centers/#Ehningen

Many thanks for giving us your precious time, Thomas!

You motivated our readers, with your insightful words and with your knowledge.

The post An Interview With The CTO Hardware Sales, Thomas Harrer appeared first on Botsify.

Here we come along with a talk with the consultant of a conversational project. A skillful and keen observer Jesus Martin-A consultant for conversational projects at jesusmartin.eu, also worked in the R & D department for BBVA and took over multiple projects in his tenure. He is also an ex-Amazon employee where he worked as a multi-modal-designer, covering VUI and GUI for Alexa. 

He is profound at solving problems and facing challenges and converting it into opportunities. Martin is recognized by customer obsession (as he is obsessed with what his customer needs and finds out ways to come up with new ideas). 

He worked on 5 multiple projects, published the most read articles o0n hot topics and performed as a good conversationalist in many international conferences.

Let’s read his insightful views!

Botsify: First of all, thank you for giving us your valuable time and speaking with botsify. From working on digital projects to the chatbot designer, tell us about your success story and about your current designation.

Jesus: Thank you for your interest. 

I started as an interaction designer for graphic interfaces, but my curiosity was always pushing me to finding the boundaries of technology and human computer interactions. 

In 2015 I joined the R&D department for BBVA Next where I was in charge of research for conversational interfaces. Some of my findings got quite popular and I am especially proud of my Design framework for chatbots, and my Playbook for testing chatbots. We did some great work exploring every different platform in the conversational spectrum, from chatbots, voice platforms like Alexa or Google Assistant and even our own devices like an Smart Mirror where we put together multimodality, artificial vision and NLP. 

In 2018 I joined the Amazon team for France, Italy and Spain and helped over 70 Alexa Skill developers create better experiences for their customers. I guided the teams on defining use cases, understanding their user’s needs, and crafting the different interactions on their VUIs. It was an amazing trip! 

In January 2020 I left Amazon and started as an independent consultant for conversational projects with my personal brand jesusmartin.eu. I also lead the Spanish chapter for the international community VoiceLunch and train others in conversational design in different Design Schools in Spain.

Botsify: To lead any project, you have to plan a systematic way. Being a product designer, what is your philosophy behind leading a successful SAAS project?

Jesus: For me there are three core elements for creating a successful product that I would summarize in: Increase your understanding on every sprint; user-technology-business; Work with the team that fits the best.

When I talk about increasing your understanding I am talking about working with hypotheses from day 0 and validating them sprint to sprint. Only if we know what are the knowledge gaps we have we can focus on creating what really matters.

Regarding the classic user-technology-business equation, I believe that success products only come when those three elements are perfectly aligned. That is something that should concern every member of the team. We need to work on products that deal with real problems from our users, what the technology can do in our interest, and with a clear idea on what will be the business model that will hold the project over time. If any of those elements fail, the entire product will fall apart.

The last item required for a successful project is related to the team working together. A combination of hard and soft skills that match together among the different members, is key for having the right space for any development.

Botsify: I saw your portfolio, you have worked on many different AI projects, tell me about your projects and your philosophy behind leading a successful project venture? 

Jesus: I have to say that problem solving is what I enjoy the most in everything in my life. It is like working on a puzzle that can be solved in many different ways. It is always fun to find different ways to put the pieces together. The challenge for me is to dive deep into the problems, perfectly understand how they are impacting users and then work on different ideas that could solve them.

Besides, the best part of working with cutting edge technologies is that everything is still under construction. There are no fixed solutions and you need to learn along the way. More than ever, “fail fast” needs to be the mantra to follow. It is all about testing, failing, iterating, and learning.

Botsify: There is no business without competitors. Who do you see as your biggest competition in the world of chatbots? 

Jesus: That obviously impacts more companies with a specific product on the market. However, a side effect of working with cutting edge technologies is that you see a lot of collaboration and knowledge sharing. Since we are all figuring out how to make things work, communities for sharing ideas keep growing everywhere. There is obviously competition as in any other business, but in some areas there is still room for more ideas and it’s interesting how we all can find ways to collaborate and benefit each other.

Botsify: This one is interesting! If you could change your career to anything else, what would it be? 

Jesus: Right now, I wouldn’t like to be working in anything but design with a technology twist. I would obviously like to have stronger skills in some aspects that would make me a better professional, but that is something I am always working on.

However, we are living in a faster world than ever, and most of us don’t know what we will be doing in 5 years from now. Hopefully, it will require creativity and problem solving, but that can be used in any job in the world.

Botsify: Chatbot mainly works as a customer support agent, or provides information and resolves queries. Which industry benefited the most from chatbots? Tell me about your experience if you ever tried chatbot as a user.

Jesus: I have tested lots of chatbots and worked on a bunch of them, but I don’t have a clear picture on what is the best use case yet. The reports always mention customer support and automation as the top cases and that can make sense. 

Regarding voice interfaces there are plenty of interesting use cases that I would keep an eye on. Entertainment, education, smart home, and automotive are my favorite ones and I truly believe that conversational products are leading a very interesting change.

Botsify: We are truly inspired by the people around us because of some reason. Who has inspired you in your life and why?  

Jesus: I would say that there are two kinds of people that have inspired my career. On one hand, I have been lucky to work with some incredible people from which I have learnt tons of things. It is the people that you sit with who can help you change and learn the most. On the other hand, I could mention some well-known professionals such as Cathy Pearl and Robert Moore in the conversational sector or Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos if we speak more on a mindset level.

Botsify: Tell us your favorite place that you have on your bucket list since long and you can’t wait to go? 

Jesus: I have been quite a traveler, and I love visiting places with cultures that have nothing to do with mine and with cuisines that I have never tested (the main two reasons for me to travel). However I have to say that I need to spend at least some time every year in quiet and close destinations. I am lucky to have the seaside four hours away from where I live, and spending a few days there every once in a while helps me come back down to earth.

Botsify: Any message that you would like to give to our readers? 

Jesus: Conversation is the most natural form of human interaction. Understand how human conversation works and find out how your customers can benefit from that because chatbots and voice apps are going to be an everywhere interface in the coming years.

Botsify: Many chatbot platforms like Botsify are helping to optimize companies’ functional areas. Would you like to shed light on this? 

Jesus: Platforms like Botsify are democratizing the technology and making it possible for anyone to work on solutions for their customers. The potential of these platforms are tremendous and we all benefit from them: teams can focus on other areas and at the end customers receive a better service. 

I believe that we are living on very exciting times and Botsify is helping drive the change.

The post An Interview With The Product Designer and UX Expert, Jesus Martin appeared first on Botsify.

We have talked too much with expert techies, now it’s time to start the conversation with the person who just inn in this field. What fascinates him and what brings him in this field, we are just going to explore.

Eran Soroka, a marketing expert and all-rounder in the media and media/tech industry, with extensive experience in managing and editing various projects, content, and products – in entertainment, news and sports, across multiple platforms. Currently working at CoCoHub as a Head of Marketing Operations.

He has a big social circle with 15K Facebook followers, 25K Twitter followers. He has much to talk with us so don’t wait. Let’s start!

Botsify: Hi Eran, we are glad to have you, thanks for giving us your time. Let’s start with your career. How long have you been working in the media? And why are you now starting with conversational AI? 

Eran: Thanks for having me, Botsify. It’s a great pleasure. 

I’ve been a man of words and communication for the last 24 years, always aspiring to explore the newest forms of media, and to make the best of the existing ones. 

I started as a sports journalist at the age of 15.5, made it all the way to be chief editor of Israel’s 2nd-biggest newspaper, and then became head of digital desk, radio manager and finally website chief editor for Channel 10 (today “Reshet”), Israel’s 2nd-biggest TV channel. At those latter positions, while integrating the online and social worlds into the company’s TV activities and DNA, I also fell in love with automation, data-driven decision making and digital innovation.

Then, in April, I saw a job opening for being a marketing and content manager for CoCoHub, a conversational AI company. This opportunity was very enticing for me, so I applied and reached out to lead conversation designer Jason F Gilbert, and later to CTO Chen Buskilla, to explain what I can bring to the table. Fortunately they picked me, and I couldn’t be happier to get immersed in this amazing new world.

Botsify: As you mentioned that you have vast experience in marketing as a chief editor. Share your experience about how technology can provide marketing a meaningful help to grow any business. 

Eran: I’ll provide a short story to get my point across. When I started my role as head of digital desk at Channel 10, the online and TV departments were disconnected completely. As a part of my plan to fix that, I started sending the editor of the main news show a list of the most clicked-on items on our news section at the website, by 4:00PM every day. 

At first he smiled, saying that “one day, this will be a blueprint for the 8:00pm news lineup”, but he was very open for integrating whatever tools the digital world can give him to analyze what’s the most engaging content, and how he can capitalize on it. From then on, the TV decision makers were getting up-to-the-minute updates on items turning viral, which in turn shaped our site’s homepage and future TV shows’ agendas. 

The same goes for marketing. Technology such as Google Analytics, insights and other tracking tools can be helpful in understanding what’s the content that appeals the most to your audience and how our audience changes, and then, tweaking or even completely changing your strategy accordingly. Both as a marketer and as a content editor, you always have to think about new and creative ways to make your product/content attractive. Even when you select a headline, cut a snippet or upload a social media post as an editor, you are de facto marketing it. What’s the point of creating content if it’s presented poorly and nobody will consume it?

Botsify: Chatbots are one of the successful tools for marketing and selling purposes. As a chatbot user, which type of advancement do you want to see in the future?

Eran: The world of possibilities is endless, really. In the era of information overdose and non-stop personalized advertising, chatbots and voice bots can make a difference between the customer finding whatever he asked for within 30 seconds, and being stuck on the line for days with never ending bureaucracy, never coming back again. 

In my vision, chatbots standardization – which is our main goal at CoCoHub – is the biggest advancement. It will allow everybody, regardless of their coding abilities, to use conversational AI, solving 80-90% of the customers’ problems while giving them an almost human-like experience, saving time and money for everybody involved, and letting the call centers representatives deal only with cases that require some “human touch”, such as helping out people in dire straits or in specific circumstances.

Botsify: Tell us about your favorite sports, and have you been a childhood player in any game?

Eran: I started both as a football and basketball fan, since my childhood home was 400m from a local football stadium, but I fell in love even more with basketball as time went on, and for the last 8 years I’ve been an NBA analyst and broadcaster in the Israelli sports channel. 

I played in amateur football and basketball teams, but my main sports “career”, so to speak, was 2 years at a great Judo club under the future national team coach. Judo was a mania in Israel in the early 90’s due to our first olympic medals in this sport, and it taught me a lot about resiliency, toughness, creativity and ability to bounce back, which helped me when I was older.

Botsify: Who was your role model growing up? How did that person’s actions impact you?

Eran: It was a combination of my two favourite basketball players at the time – Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley. I loved Magic’s leadership, creativity and vision, on and off the court, and I loved Barkley’s tenacity and how he turned his height deficit, round frame and sharp tongue into advantages. I wasn’t the highest or the most athletic guy around, so it was fun trying to follow Barkley’s philosophy, “Go get the damn ball”, and imply it for other aspects of life – when I’m going all-in on something, I want to leave my mark on it.

Botsify: Top 3 Ways to Treat Yourself to Self-Care?

Eran: I’m not a healthy life guru or something, not even close… but there are some things that I found working for me. I ditched white flour because it turned out to be harmful for my health. I’m trying to walk at least 20-25km combined every week in the open air. And I only drink water, coffee/tea and squeezed juices. I also don’t smoke anything or drink alcohol – I know it seems contrary to self-care for others, but that’s the way I am…

Botsify: You have accomplished many milestones in your life. Tell us about accomplishments are you most proud of?

Eran: I was the first to introduce social media regularly into the daily print media in Israel, so that’s something that I’m very proud of. But my best (and most exhausting) years in that regard were on channel 10 – taking a company that lagged light years behind its competitors in its digital orientation and abilities, and making it able to give a decent fight to everybody on the field – all with a smaller, younger and less experienced crew.

Botsify: What do you love best about yourself (physical trait or personality characteristic), and Why?

Eran: I’ll quote my former CEO who said that my best trait is my ability to connect people. I really believe that if you find the right initiatives for both sides, and can frame a win-win situation even in cases that don’t look like it at first glance, you‘ll have a better chance of fulfilling your vision and make both sides committed to it.

I also tend to see myself as creative, with ideas but especially with words. My parents bought me some word puns books at an early age, and it was all downhill from there… today I’m a big pun-lover, an undisputed bilingual master of dad jokes.

Botsify: Any message you have for our community?

Eran: I’m a newcomer in this field, but I found the conversational AI community very warm, diverse, rich, fascinating, welcoming and most importantly – collaborating. I see it as a newly-discovered island which became a habitat for people from various backgrounds and disciplines, where every one can chime and bring his own best practices from their previous “lives”, in order to take this industry forward and inspire others. I’m also able to learn something new every week from the series of interviews I’m doing for CoCoHub with leading conversational AI figures, called Taking Turns.

The only problem with the community – and that’s a substantial one – is that the conversational AI field is fragmented, there is no code reuse and no collaboration – and each developer sticks to his platform and tool set of choice, needing to reinvent the wheel many times over. It drives me crazy sometimes… 

So, my main message is – cultivate a spirit of collaboration, in order to create a strong, vibrant community, even when competition will be stiffer. Chatbots and Voice bots, unite!

(And by the way, we have a big and international conversation designers community at Discord, so you’re all invited…)

Botsify: Your favorite place where you spend most of the time?

Eran: I spend most of my time at home or at work, but I’ll list 2 of my favorite places: one is the National Park, about a 1.5km walk from my home, which is a huge, green, peaceful place for walks and other activities. My favorite destination in Israel is the north, where you can find amazing views, parks and rivers, all within a 2 or 3 hours drive.

Botsify: Chatbots are trending worldwide to automate customer support, and products like Botsify are providing ease for everyone. What do you think businesses should consider Chatbots as a perfect virtual assistant?

Eran: I believe that since every business has a goal (or more than one) to achieve, every business can use a chatbot – whether it’s via Botsify, or our own platform at CoCoHub. Whether it’s for lead generation, for entertainment purposes or for educational instructions, having a chatbot should not a goal by itself, but it’s a perfect tool – with the ability to immerse your customer in the brand’s language, values and character through a conversation – to create a much better customer journey and, eventually, achieve your goals. 

Thank you so much for giving us your precious time. You even inspired our readers with your informative words and with your experience. 

The post An Interview With The Head of Marketing Operations, Eran Soroka appeared first on Botsify.

We love it whenever we bring some knowledgeable piece of content for our reader. This time we engage a highly experienced industry expert “Nicolas Babin”-the president of Babin Business Consulting, who has 30 years of experience in the martech world. 

Nicolas core expertise lies in technical, marketing and management fields. He has command on Consumer Electronics, robotics, web analytics, gamification, online intelligence – data intelligence – big data (behavior analysis and data coherence), digital (eCommerce, online advertising, gaming, apps, AI). 

With his vast experience, he accomplished many projects and almost 30 publications. He was awarded on different successful projects and started over 22 companies across the world.

The power of speaking makes him a great speaker and key opinion leader. He has command of 6 different languages.

Let’s talk to him!

Botsify: Hi Nicolas, firstly, thank you for giving your precious time and speaking with us today. Let’s start with your career, What made you choose this profession? Tell us about your success story and your current designation with the images of your workplace.

Nicolas: Thank you for the opportunity you are giving me. I had many professions during my 30+ years in business. From programmer to marketer, head of communication, HR, senior management, entrepreneur and now consultant. I have been very fortunate to live and work in great places (San Francisco, Tokyo, Berlin, London, Brussels and now Bordeaux).

Each time a new opportunity came along, I thought “why not, give it a try and see” and it was the right strategy as I have thoroughly enjoyed all life challenges. Today I work mostly from home in the South West of France in a beautiful town called Arcachon by the ocean.

Botsify: As you mentioned in your profile, you started and/or developed over 22 companies in the US, UK and France. It is a big achievement indeed. Tell us more about this journey.

Nicolas: Thanks to my experience in the US and also being married to a San Franciscan for over 30 years, I developed a very strong entrepreneur mindset. Any time I see an opportunity, I start thinking about a business. I have created or I have been involved in many industries like eHealth, car sharing, gamification, coffee roasting, franchise, industry, architecture…

It has its ups and downs obviously. I have been successful in some and failed in others, the main lesson has always been that I have learned a lot in all the experiences.

Botsify: Mostly industries using gamification in the recruitment process, what about chatbot gamification in the other function areas of the organization?

Nicolas: Gamification is the use of game mechanics in non gaming activities. It helps with engagement so you can find elements of gamification in all types of industries and organizations.

Botsify: As we can see you have accomplished multiple projects, so what steps did you take for leading a successful SaaS project, what hurdles and then what outcomes did you get?

Nicolas: My associate’s mother has had diabetes for over 40 years. Once she was in a coma because of her diabetes. So he decided to start coding to create an app to help her balance her disease. I thought it was a great idea and together we created the business. The main hurdles were that neither of us are doctors and we managed to create a scientific board with 4 professors and 4 doctors and this is what created our credibility. We are doing this to help people with a terrible disease, the outcome is really a feeling of accomplishment and pride. (wow!)

Botsify: Many leading businesses facing problematic situations due to COVID-19. But many organizations are running smoothly with the help of digital marketing. Being a digital marketing influencer, would you like to tell the contribution of omnichannel and multichannel retail in this scenario?

Nicolas: For many years, I have been advocating the fact that companies and people need to transform their way of working. The traditional way needs a change. Covid19 has convinced people that it needs to be done now. This is not to say that we are in a revolution.

We are in a phase of evolution where the way to conduct meetings is changing, the way to manage people is changing and the way colleagues interact is changing. Digital tools are helping the change and this is why omnichannel retail is optimizing customer experience. You will still have people interested in going to a shop and you have people who will use augmented reality for example to shop from the comfort of their homes.

Botsify: Being a digital marketer, would you like to give some social media strategies (like Facebook, Instagram, email, etc.) for engaging targeted audiences to mid-level businesses? 

Nicolas: Community management is essential to anyone involved in social media strategy. You need to have an engaged audience if you want to grow and learn. It is much better to have a targeted audience of 100 people reacting to your posts than 1 million people not even reading what you post. Social media when done right is effective, cost efficient and professional. Each channel is different, each channel has a different purpose. Do not underestimate the power of social media, it can help any company make it big if done right.

Botsify: When we talk to the different people, we learn from them and get some interesting ideas. As a speaker, did you experience such things and what makes you the most excited when you talk with your audience.? 

Nicolas: I love when people are so engaged that they participate with me and are part of the talk. In this example, people stood up and it was a lot of fun.

Botsify: One of your publications “How to manage crisis in communication” , I think you try to stabilize employer-employee relationships. What if we talk in the sense of organization-customer relationship with the automation tool? Can chatbot help us in crisis in communication?

Nicolas: Yes chatbots can help, but as a first step. In time of crisis you need speed and availability which chatbots provide. However, if a problem persists, human contact is essential. Moreover, in times of crisis you need to be proactive and announce what is happening and sometimes humans are the solution for it.

Botsify: We are truly inspired by the people around us because of some reason. Have you ever met anyone who motivates you to do something out of the box? 

Nicolas: Yes, this is so true in general and so true for me. I have had some great leaders/mentors than have helped me grow to who I am today. First Kawada-san my first boss at Sony, then Amagai-san my boss in the robotic business. The head of Sony Europe, Jean Michel Perbet has also been my greatest mentor. 

Botsify: Quote your motivational thoughts to inspire our readers.

Nicolas:

   Fall seven times, stand up eight.

Botsify: Many chatbot platforms like Botsify are helping to optimize communication with customers. Would you like to shed light on this? And what is the future of chatbot automations?

Nicolas: Chatbots are becoming essential in customer support activity. The progress with AI and Machine Learning make chatbots more efficient and more engaging. Chatbots have started to use NLP (Natural Language Processing) and so the relationship with chatbots is becoming more natural. Chatbots are here to augment humans, the human touch should not completely disappear from the communication with customers.

We are thankful for giving us your valuable time and talking with Botsify. It’s been a truly insightful experience for our readers! 

The post An Interview With The President Of Babin Business Consulting, Nicolas Babin appeared first on Botsify.

Mellissah is the Founder of the Marketing Eye, an international marketing consulting firm established in 2004 that specializes in companies looking to fast-track business growth. They provide businesses with a complete outsourced marketing department. 

Till now, Mellissah published a massive number of marketing solution strategies on well-known sites and magazines. She has 20k followers on LinkedIn, and 80k+ on Twitter. Marketing Eye is the top 100 Influencer in Entrepreneurship globally & has more than 10k people read her weekly blogs.

We are grateful for having an experienced and enthusiastic personality in marketing technology, having experience of 20 years in martech solution. She works tirelessly in their field and the epitome of many reasons. Her expertise are: 

• Extensive experience as an outsourced marketing department
• Results-driven lead generation campaigns
• Content marketing / branding / PR / social media campaigns
• Public speaking & workshop facilitation
• Web dev & SEO

Let’s talk with her!

Botsify: Hi Mellissah, I hope you are doing great in this situation, Let’s start. Which thing motivated you to become such an exceptional marketer?

Mellissah: What has been the pinnacle of embracing marketing and all that it encompasses is seeing how people respond to advertising and marketing as a whole. When you are a child, your parents may buy particular brands because their parents did, or that is the brand that is considered cool, or price point.

Watching this evolution from a home front and then at school and as an adult has really inspired me to look behind the ‘why’ and use this knowledge to become better at marketing.

Botsify: How did you get started with Marketing? Where did that interest come from for martech solutions?

Mellissah: Like many people I started in marketing straight out of school. My first job was in an advertising agency. I fell in love with what goes into making great marketing campaigns and then proceeded to spend the next 25 years perfecting it. Of course, it’s impossible to do so, but it certainly has kept me motivated and challenged. 

My interest in martech started early. An old client remembers me talking about how marketing automation would work long before there was ever a marketing automation solution in the market. My brain is attune to finding solutions to problems and one of the biggest problems marketers face is return on investment and achieving the desired results the client is looking for.

Botsify: Mellissah, I’ve seen that AI is taking over the world and so many inventions are coming out. Now how do you think AI will help small businesses in 2020 and onwards?

Mellissah: AI is still in its infancy. The big multinationals are all still perfecting their AI solutions and automation as a whole, and smaller businesses are a long way behind. Small business hasn’t fully embraced AI, not because they are afraid of it, but more so, they don’t understand it. The education process has not caught up to the availability of the technology in the market to help businesses work smarter, faster and more efficiently.

It’s here to stay and will evolve to the point whereby there will be newer, better technology applications that will take over. However, the reality is that it is here now and AI is powerful and for small business. It gives them the opportunity to compete with their larger counterparts in a way that has not been achievable before.

Botsify: How have you seen machine learning and big data helping companies in marketing and making data driven decisions?

Mellissah: When you look at the number of applications in the market today using AI and machine learning, you can see that the experiments and exploration of the technologies to create smarter marketing outcomes is front and center. Both technologies are still in early stages, so that is important for everyone to realize upfront.

It would be producing the potential right now, but you do need to be embracing it to realize the full benefits. AI and machine learning is used in marketing to develop content, execute marketing campaigns, write marketing strategies, keep brands on-brand, and to leverage data to automate processes across the entire marketing function.

Botsify: Does the NLP and chatbot industry help to make customer support improved and does customer satisfaction can be increased with chatbots?

Mellissah: Chatbots are interesting because there is a place for them, but how this technology is executed needs to consider factors such as customer experience, expectations and delivery. The fact that many chatbots still can’t answer basic questions is a problem for the customer experience – and who wants to turn their customers off?

The other issue is the fact that the chatbots used today often don’t use ‘machine learning’ to accommodate the customer on a one-to-one basis. Some people don’t mind a chatbot interrupting them within seconds on going to a website, yet others see this as a reason to go to another website. Understanding timing is important.

Botsify: As you know about the prediction that by the end of 2020 almost 80% of businesses will use chatbots, Do you agree with it? Do you think chatbot is currently a big thing in Digital Marketing?

Mellissah: Chatbots are on the rise and the adoption of this technology is powerful for customer experience is the strategy and technology is right. However, 80% is a ‘pie in the sky’ statistic and will not be reached in 2020. In fact, businesses’ adoption of chatbots will be significantly lower than expectations and more realistic figures are as low as 30-40%.

Botsify: With your vast experience, what will you recommend for SaaS startups for building the marketing strategy of their products?

Mellissah: Relying on the experience of one marketing manager to develop marketing strategies is something of the past. The reality is that AI and software robotics are a smarter, faster and more accurate way to identify target markets, key messaging, competitor advantages and tactics that will fit into your budget and resource allocation.

Robotic Marketer’s technology has had a fast adoption rate because companies realize that to be competitive in today’s marketplace they must have less ‘hit and miss’ marketing tactics and be more targeted. Using one marketer and a few tools doesn’t give companies a competitive advantage, nor does it allow them to stand out from the crowd. It gives them a narrow concept of tactics that may or may not work depending on so many different variables. 

Botsify: How are you helping small to corporate size businesses with A.I in robotic marketer?

Mellissah: We are changing the strategy and consulting landscape, and cutting back the layers. By providing small to mid-sized businesses with marketing strategies, more comprehensive, detailed and targeted than what is on the market today for less than $5,000, it is allowing them to go to market faster and smarter.

We help businesses understand their competitors better, what their individual advantages are and how they can leverage those lessons to fine-tune their own marketing activations. Through Robotic Marketer, customers get in-depth analysis of their customers and this allows the technology to be more targeted. The tactics really are incredible in terms of details and specifics.

Companies can expect complete lists of media, events, awards and so on as part of the strategy that is delivered which would take a person many weeks to develop. Overall, it’s about intelligence and creating the right pathway forward and right now in the current market, small and mid-sized businesses are looking for this.

Botsify: Sadly the global pandemic has hit the world and so many people are dying on a daily basis what suggestion you will give to the marketers for their safety and continue running business.

Mellissah: Marketers are typically educated people and as such, know what they need to do to stay safe. From a professional basis, many are working from home and this is not something new for the industry. Using technology to power teams performance, bringing in external consultants that are experienced in employee engagement, and setting in place best practices helps people get through this unfortunate time without incident.

Botsify: I hope that this pandemic will end soon and after the current situation, which country or place you want to visit first?

Mellissah: For me it will be the US. I have offices there and like any entrepreneur I am really looking forward to going back to a normal work environment. Having said that, it will be the new norm. The US has so much to offer businesses and if you can conquer that market, you can do so in.

Botsify: Mellissah chatbot companies like botsify are providing ease & automation to customer support. What is your opinion about chatbot platforms? We would love to have your feedback.

Mellissah: Companies like Botsify are using their technology to accelerate customer experiences. Working with not just marketers but customers too is paramount to ensuring that chatbot platforms become the new norm. They are essential to digital engagement, but adoption of this technology platform is critical to realizing its full potential. We still need to work on both the adoption of chatbots and also the enhancement of customer experience.

We are very much obliged to have a conversation with you. Thank you for sparing your precious time for us!

The post Interview With The Founder Of Marketing Eye, Mellissah Smith appeared first on Botsify.

Sam initiated his career in 1979 and now he is truly a mastermind in his field. He designed his  first chatbot in 2016 and was obsessed with it. He also knows how to play with words and create a magnificent piece of content. 

Till today, he wrote many articles on chatbot, AI, NLP and other hot topics. These hot topics are not only in these articles but now everyone wants to indulge and get in-depth knowledge about its future. He has command on 3 different languages (English, Spanish, and Italian)

Let’s talk to him!

Botsify: Hi Sam, firstly, thank you for giving your precious time and speaking with us today. Let’s start with your career, What made you choose this profession? and what hurdles you have faced during the time. How did you get ideas or concepts for the chatbots? 

Sam: No problem!  Well, the truth is that I didn’t really “choose” working with chatbots. I think it’s fair to say that they chose me. In 2016, I was working in an office, and my manager asked me to look into chatbots which were quite a new thing for everyone. That time (2016 is when Facebook added them to their platform). I did a lot of research and built out a prototype for the company. But my manager took one look at it and decided that it was too “weird”. And that our customers wouldn’t understand how to use it.

Well… I was very frustrated!  So I spent the next few weeks on my own time designing my own chatbot for my own purposes.  It was based on the old “Choose Your Own Adventure” games. A story game where you help a 13-year-old kid on his first day at school. I put it up on Facebook and forgot about it. A month later, I checked and saw that 16,000 people from around the world had been playing my chatbot game!  Woah…

So that’s when I knew that chatbots were my calling.

As for how I get ideas, it’s not much different than writing, which is what I’ve been doing for the past 20 years or so. You start with the personality and build your way up from there.  

For business chatbots, I think to myself “Who would be the perfect employee to work at this company?” Mind you, it has to be someone who honestly and truly enjoys working there, not a simulacrum of fake, happy-all-the-time “perfect” employee. Even in the most boring and banal jobs, there’s something there to appreciate, so I look for that. That’s how I make chatbots feel alive and interesting, even if the chatbot serves a banal business like insurance or mortgages.

Botsify: To what do you attribute your success?

Sam: Honestly? Chatbots were overlooked for many years because they were seen as something that only programmers or coders could create. And coders tend to create very boring chatbots.

Mind you, I have nothing against coders – I’ve worked with some top-flight programmers to create great chatbots. But the secret to a great chatbot – one which feels like a “real” person with spark, charm, and personality – is to hire a writer. In other words, an artist. Artists excel at using their creativity to bring other mediums to life like a painting easel or the written page, so it’s only natural that they can create and design chatbots that are very engaging.

All my successes came from me designing one chatbot, and someone else seeing it and going “woah, I need something like that.” And then we work together on a shared vision and go from there.  

Botsify: Let’s talk about your Favorite place, hope this pandemic will end soon, maybe the new normal will be different for us. How will this pandemic change the way we travel? And after this pandemic, do you have any plan where you would like to travel? Share with us!

Sam: I shudder to think of what travel will look like in the future. I’ve already seen how airlines want people to wear masks for long-haul trips and have each seat boxed off. It looks miserable, lonely, and hot, and I can’t imagine many people would want to go through that voluntarily. 

Right now, I’ve gotten used to enjoying the pleasures of my hometown. But I really would love to go visit Odessa (Ukraine) again soon. Through the chatbot world, I’ve met some great people who live there (chatbots are huge in Ukraine – even the post office uses them!), and I’d love to see the beach and relax there a little.

Botsify:  Sam, I come across your article “All Hail the Great Rebel Alliance!” Tell me about the concept behind the game that you build and how can you relate it with chatbots? Is it the new feature of the chatbots? 

Sam: For me, every chatbot is a kind of game, even if, on the surface, it isn’t one.  Being a game doesn’t mean there’s “gamification” or working for points but in the sense that the experience is both challenging and entertaining. A movie can be entertaining, but there’s no challenge, there as you just sit back and watch it passively.  

But a good chatbot should spark some kind of the same experience as playing a video game in the sense that you get to explore a new world while also getting something done. Most chatbot designers just focus on the end point or “achieving the business objective,” but that takes all the entertainment out of the experience.  

A good chatbot should deliver what the user came to get accomplished while ALSO making the user wonder “hmm, I wonder what else this thing can do!”

If you’re designing chatbots and aren’t sure how to add a little of that fun and “game play” into your design, start with something simple like a trivia quiz. Everyone loves trivia even about the – no pun intended – most trivial subjects.

Botsify: As we can see all over the world, the economy of the world is moving towards a crisis, what will be the marketing strategies they should follow to engage customers and overcome this crisis?

Sam: That’s really hard to say.  But I think it’s time to get away from the mindset of really crude and frankly inhuman marketing concepts like “funnels” and metrics start thinking more about building relationships.  A good chatbot will not only show your customers that YOU (and your business) have a personality but also develop an individual relationship with each person.  And that’s what makes it special.

Unless you’re Amazon, it’s a fool’s errand to concentrate only on increasing click-throughs and other metrics like that. And please, let’s get away from annoying “drip” messages and “abandoned cart reminders.”  Those things might work in the short-term, but it’s a lonely, miserable away to earn money in the long run.

Botsify: AI technology is the epitome of success in almost every organization. Share your experience, when you write a content piece on chatbot, what is the pain point you keep in your mind to attract or delight your readers?

Sam: I mostly write articles about chatbots when I’ve struggled with something and then I want to share the solution with my fellow designers. I’ve had offers to write “news” pieces and that kind of thing, but that isn’t for me. I find most of those to be a lot of self-aggrandizing hot air, to be honest.

Since chatbot design is still a really, really new field with little formalized training or instruction, everyone is just grasping at straws trying to figure out how to get all the moving pieces and fit them together.  So that’s my focus – saying “here’s this one thing that might be driving you nuts, and here’s what I did.”  

I’m never quite sure who even reads my articles, but one day on Discord I had a person tell me that they read my 3,500-word article not just once but twice!  Woah.  That blew me away. But she was going through the same thing I was in the design process, and that’s how she found my article.  So that made me feel good.

Botsify:  If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?

Sam: If you’re coming from a coding/programming background, stick to that, and don’t get lost trying to create personalities and dialog.  There are lots of great ways to use things like APIs and code to make a chatbot do some really cool stuff.  But please – PLEASE – hire a writer, a “creative type” to design the chatbot.

Likewise, if you’re an artist, writer, or “creative type,” then don’t get depressed about or overwhelmed having to learn Python and Javascript and all the rest.  And please remember that, sadly, most chatbot documentation (I’m looking at you, DialogFlow!) is written by engineers and coders, so it can be very hard to parse.

There are plenty of coders out there who can “wire up” whatever you can dream up and make it work.  If you can draw a flowchart, that’s all you need in many cases.  What matters is the life and creativity that you put into that flowchart!

Long story short – coders and artists should pair up to get maximum results.  

And build your first chatbot for yourself.  If the process seems fun and gets you excited, then you’re in the right business.  Share the results with your friends or people online, and before you know it, you’ll have people knocking on your door, asking you to build their next chatbot.

Botsify: Last but not the least, as you already know Botsify is an AI chatbot making platform. What is your opinion about Botsify? We would love to have your feedback.

Sam: Botsify is all right, but it’s really hard to stand out in the chatbot world when the underlying fundamentals are all the same. I mean, at the end of the day, a chatbot just returns pre-programmed messages based on user input criteria.  “Under the hood,” most chatbot design platforms are all more or less identical.

Internet users are starting to fragment, especially outside of the United States, and diversifying the platforms and channels which your chatbots can reach people is always a sound strategy.

If Botsify is willing to continue to invest in itself and its users, I think it has a very bright future!

We are very much obliged to have a conversation with you. Thank you for sparing your precious time for us!

The post An Interview With The Dialogue UX Designer, Sam Ursu appeared first on Botsify.

Today, we are excited to bring an in-depth educational post about chatbot technology. Here comes the most intellectual “chatbot guy” who is more obsessed when it comes to chatbot technology. Botsify was fortunate enough to be able to talk with Jim Rowe, the founder of Jim Rowe-bot. He achieved many milestones and worked with numerous organizations and executed multiple projects.

Jim is the the most enthusiastic expert in developing and designing chatbots for different business domains. He works tirelessly to create the best experiences for our chatbot audiences. He is also proficient in marketing and management skills.

Jim’s expertise lies in Facebook Messenger Marketing, Conversational Commerce development & Design, Facebook Marketing, Campaign management, technology integrations, chatbots, chatbot development, chatbot design. 

He’s professional, knowledgeable, flexible, organised, a great communicator, passionate and very inspiring. Many people endorsed him with such humble words that makes him a mastermind in the technical field.

Let’s talk with him!

Botsify: Hi Jim, first of all, thank you for giving your precious time  and speaking with us today. Let’s start with your career, how did you start with it, and what hurdles you have faced during the time.

Jim: I came across the world of Chatbots and AI in early 2017 whilst working for a UK based start-up. We used our first Messenger-driven Chatbot to educate potential clients to a new product and it worked exceptionally well and I was hooked. At that stage primarily on technology but later, I become more passionate about good conversational design.

Botsify: Jim, your company’s main focus on “Facebook Messenger Chatbots” and I believe there is a reason behind, but as we see around, the social media platform is going vast and numerous messaging apps around here. Why does your company focus on Facebook Messenger apps?

Jim: Good question. Also we have the conversational design skills to work on many different platforms, we see Messenger-driven Chatbots as the ‘entry point’ for most SME’s here in the UK. Firstly, their needs are less technical, focusing on either customer service or sales and marketing. Secondly, Messenger-driven Chatbots offer good opportunities to better service customers without breaking the bank.

Botsify: Being an agency partner and running multiple projects, let’s shed the light on what is the future of world business after this pandemic?

Jim: It’s become quite apparent that the pandemic has hastened the already fast adoption of businesses being able to better service their customers online, 24/7. I feel that automation will play an increasing role in how businesses provide that 24/7 service that customers now expect. Messenger bots help fill that need.

Botsify: Jim, I’m sure you have heard about the prediction that by 2020 almost 80% businesses will use chatbot and we are seeing that, Now what kind of revolution do you see in the future regarding the usage of chatbot in different industries?

Jim: An area we are focusing on is helping small businesses to scale quickly. In our case this is often coaches, consultants and advisors. In the past they are typically limited to selling slots of their time. With automation and primarily Messenger-driven Chatbots they can service more customers, better. The challenge is taking what are very human-to-human business services and learning where to apply automation using Messenger to automate and claw back time.

Botsify: What do you think artificial intelligence fills the gap between online retailers and the customers, effectively and the personalized touch makes customers’ experience more satisfied? Have you ever experienced when people didn’t get satisfaction from chatbot?

Jim: As strange as it sounds I am often challenged by business leaders claiming that they don’t want to need a Chatbot as they believe that their business is built on the personal experience of that human-to-human interaction. They will often claim to have experienced a terrible Chatbot experience, but when pressed cannot explain when and where. It’s often more belief than fact. We have seen clients be able to 10x the number of clients that can help, using Messenger Chatbots.

Botsify: I’ve seen that AI is taking over the world and so many inventions are coming out. What will be the next thing in artificial intelligence between now and 2025? How AI will help small businesses in 2020 and onward?

Jim: Although I believe that AI is beyond the reach of most small businesses due to both budget and technical knowledge, this will not always be the case. Over the next 3-5 years, I would hope that it becomes the norm for small businesses to integrate some level of AI assistance into both their Customer Service and marketing bots.

Botsify: Jim, I’m sure you have heard about the prediction that by 2022, chatbot are expected to help reduce business costs by up to $8 billion. Will it help to recover all the business from COVID-19 crises?

Jim: Due to the pressures on businesses of all sizes, many are going to be focussed solely on survival in the first instance. In a post COVID-19 world some, when the time is right, will start to explore how they can use automation, AI and Chatbots to continue working during a crisis.

Botsify: Sadly, in this pandemic situation, some businesses have collapsed and few still running smoothly. What do you think about your business activity in these challenging days? How is your working experience in this pandemic? 

Jim: There has been very little impact on us as a business. We have always been a remote team about to work from anywhere with the internet. For many of our customers this has been challenging, especially for venues, a key market for us. We have also found that some businesses have had more time on their hands to explore new ways of working and for some, the benefits of using Messenger-driven Chatbots is clear. 

Botsify: As we all know the circumstances have changed after the COVID-19 pandemic, maybe the new normal will be different for us. How will the COVID-19 change the way we travel? And after this pandemic, do you have any plan where you would like to travel? 

Jim: I think for many businesses that in the past would visit clients and prospects there May well be a drastic change to meeting virtually online. For us that has always been the case. Most of our client meetings take place in Messenger and more frequently now in Messenger Rooms (why wouldn’t you?). 

Botsify: Quote your favorite thoughts that give inspiration for a successful business insider.

Jim: 

 Stay focused at all costs – It’s the distractions that steel time and steel dreams.

Thank you for taking the time to chat with our blog audience. Botsify truly appreciate your insights! 

The post An Interview With The Founder Of Chatbot Marketing Agency, Jim Rowe appeared first on Botsify.