Brooks Brothers Partners with Monetate to Increase Ecommerce Conversion Rates

by OpenView

Brooks Brothers, the classic American retailer, has partnered with Monetate to leverage customer data and make real-time changes to its website that improve customer relevance and increase ecommerce revenue.

Using just one of the many powerful benefits of the Monetate Agility Suite, the retailer created a successful product badging campaign to highlight product attributes and help customers better understand each item. Brooks Brothers deployed badges with attributes like “New Arrival,” “Made in America” and “Collegiate,” initially running A/B/C tests using a combination of both text and images. In the most successful badging test, conversion rate increased 26 percent, revenue per visit went up 34 percent, and add-to-cart rates rose almost 5 percent.

“With 193 years in business we are America’s oldest fashion retailer, and our longstanding history is the direct result of a focus on innovation,” said Cindy Lincks, Director of Analytics at Brooks Brothers. “Leading through innovation is built into the fabric of our company, and Monetate is helping us live up to that commitment. Monetate’s technology has transformed the way we do business and produced incredible results.”

“Monetate makes it easy for retailers like Brooks Brothers to put big data to work in ways that drive business results,” said David Brussin, founder and CEO of Monetate. “It’s great to see Brooks Brothers create a culture of testing and website optimization across the organization that has led to higher conversions and an improved customer experience.”

The Monetate Agility Suite allows marketers to change anything, anywhere on the website, at any time making it easier than ever for brands to test an unlimited number of marketing campaigns, connect with key segments of website traffic in real time, maintain messaging consistency between distinct marketing channels throughout the purchasing cycle, and merchandise and display products optimally.

To learn more about the results of Brooks Brothers implementation of the Monetate Agility Suite, download theBrooks Brothers: A Badge of Success case study.

About Monetate

Monetate drives billions of dollars of revenue every year for some of the best-known brands in the world, including Best Buy, QVC, Urban Outfitters, Aeropostale, The Sports Authority, and PETCO. The company’s comprehensive product suite and conversion expertise enable marketers to deliver a more relevant customer experience with unprecedented agility.

Leading marketers rely on Monetate’s cloud-based browser technology to achieve a new level of speed and control, allowing them to run 16 times more optimization campaigns compared to industry averages. The Monetate Agility Suite includes advanced products for testing, merchandising, targeting, and cross-channel consistency, providing an opportunity to bypass IT restraints and react in real time to customer demands.

Monetate also helps marketers implement best practices and drive online revenue through its expert strategic services and content publishing teams. For more information visit http://monetate.com/ or follow us on Twitter @Monetate.

International Clients Can Now Access Panelists in Over 90 Countries in Their Preferred Currency

by OpenView

uSamp, a leader in providing targeted audiences for global consumer insights, announced the next generation of its self-serve panel access platform, SampleMarket™, which now provides global access to survey respondents in over 90 countries.

In addition to providing clients with immediate access to millions of verified, qualified, and richly profiled panelists, uSamp now introduces the ability to purchase respondents from around the world and pay for those respondents in their home currency. SampleMarket offers customers real-time pricing, feasibility, instant delivery of panelists, and for those interested, an unparalleled level of customization using its advanced API (Application Programming Interface) integration.

“Speed is key to us, and that is why we particularly trust uSamp’s SampleMarket,” said Josefina Rickardt, marketing manager, EyeTrackShop. “SampleMarket lets us take a project live within just a few minutes, and since we are an international customer of uSamp, we can easily monitor it from Stockholm, as well as create new sample groups if we need to. A big “like” for the user friendly and intuitive interface.”

SampleMarket enables organizations to intuitively create research studies and instantly connect with qualified respondents around the world to gain consumer and business insights. SampleMarket uses the most advanced panelist engagement, data quality, sample selection and incentive models in the industry.

The SampleMarket technology capitalizes on the organizational need for increased efficiency, transparency, and cost savings. SampleMarket easily integrates into current technology with API, a mission to make the technology and respondents accessible on the Web. Users receive instant access to verified panelists, the ability to manage multiple sample sources – whether it’s an existing proprietary panel, an external sample partner or using uSamp’s panel – and easy control of the entire sampling process online from a centralized dashboard.

“The marketing research industry often gets wrapped up in panel size,” said Matt Dusig, co-founder and CEO, uSamp. “But the industry should instead be focusing on creating efficiencies while at the same time understanding the global nuances that make region rich data points – and that’s exactly what we’ve done with SampleMarket. We’ve built our technology around understanding our clients and panelists. We now offer clients unprecedented access to our global panel to show them how much we value efficiency, transparency and customer experience.”

About uSamp

uSamp (www.uSamp.com), the Answer Network, is a premier provider of technology and survey respondents used to obtain consumer and business insights. uSamp’s solutions and SaaS platform transform the way companies gain intelligence to make better, faster decisions about their products and services by tapping into uSamp’s 8 million global panel of survey respondents. Through uSamp’s proprietary technologies for self-serve survey authoring, self-survey sampling, and private-label panel management, companies have on-demand access to millions of profiled survey respondents. SúperOpinión.com is just one of uSamp’s Hispanic Panels. uSamp is based in Los Angeles, with five offices throughout the United States, Europe and India.

The company has more than 185 team members worldwide, led by serial entrepreneurs Matt Dusig and Gregg Lavin. uSamp ranked No. 11 in the 2011 Forbes America’s Most Promising Company List, was named one of the fastest growing private companies in Los Angeles by the San Fernando Valley Business Journal and one of the best places to work in Los Angeles by the Los Angeles Business Journal.

Contacts

For uSamp:
Juliet Niczewicz, 408-975-3091
The Hoffman Agency
[email protected]

MLB Network Drafts Exinda to Improve Bandwidth Utilization

by OpenView

Interop Las Vegas 2012 – Exinda, a global provider of next-generation WAN optimization and performance assurance solutions, announced that MLB Network, Major League Baseball’s 24/7 cable television network, is using its WAN optimization solution to shape traffic, prioritize critical applications, and save its network infrastructure from reaching disastrous saturation levels.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120508/CL02292LOGO )

As well as standard back-office apps, MLB Network’s infrastructure carries significant video traffic, plus up-to-the-moment player and game data collated, analyzed and made into on-screen graphics by a bespoke application. Optimized by the Exinda solution, these bring the magic of Major League Baseball to cable and satellite TV viewers.

“Previously we were seeing 98% utilization on our routers, which spelled potential problems with upcoming traffic peaks around the MLB First-Year Player Draft, All-Star Game and the World Series; maybe even traffic overloads bringing our firewalls down. It’s pretty impressive what Exinda has been able to do for us to make those issues disappear,” said MLB Network IT Director Cindy Cortell. “With Exinda, we’re now able to assure performance to key applications and systems.”

MLB Network uses Exinda to control the traffic generated and consumed by around 1,000 media networks, partner organizations and other super-users throughout the regular season, over its dual 200 MB Circuits. After deployment and configuration, Exinda appliances – which boast market-leading packet-shaping capabilities – immediately provided complete traffic visibility and control with full reporting, enabling MLB Network to identify specific applications to prioritize or limit, by user, down to the nearest Kbps.

“The behind-the-scenes work that delivers live, nationwide, rolling sports coverage and shows like MLB Tonight to millions of baseball fans is just extraordinary,” said Nolan Rosen, CMO at Exinda. “It’s great to know Exinda is playing such an important role in helping the team at MLB Network succeed, and to continue pushing the limits of 24/7 broadcasting as far as possible.”

Visit Exinda at Booth 1121 at Interop May 8-10, 2012, at the Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas.

About MLB Network

MLB Network is the ultimate television destination for baseball fans, featuring the Emmy Award-winning MLB Tonight, live games, original programming, highlights and insights and analysis from the best in the business, including Bob Costas, Peter Gammons, Jim Kaat, Al Leiter and Harold Reynolds. MLB Network debuted on January 1, 2009 as the largest launch in cable television history and is currently distributed in approximately 68 million cable, telco TV and satellite homes throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico. For more information and to find MLB Network in your area, go to www.mlbnetwork.com.

About Exinda®

Exinda is a proven global supplier of next-generation WAN optimization and application acceleration products. The company has helped more than 2,500 organizations in over 80 countries worldwide improve the end user experience, manage application performance, manage congestion over the WAN and reduce network operating costs for the IT executive. For more information, please visit http://www.exinda.com.

NextDocs Wins Emerging Technology Company of the Year at PACT Enterprise Awards

by OpenView

NextDocs today announced that it has won the Emerging Technology Company award at the 19th annual PACT Enterprise Awards.

This honor recognizes NextDocs, an Inc. 500 company, for its strong management, strategic growth, and innovation as the company builds from its startup roots into one of the Philadelphia area’s technology leaders.

“This Emerging Technology Company award recognizes the strengths of our team in both developing innovative solutions for our customers and managing the strategies that drive company success,” said Zikria Syed, CEO and Co-founder at NextDocs. “Our management team has demonstrated its ability to raise capital to accelerate our growth, to expand into new markets and industries, and to attract top tech talent. But our business has also been growing thanks to our solutions that deliver real business value. Every day we strive to optimize business processes for our customers to help them achieve compliance and facilitate collaboration.”

The Emerging Technology Company award is presented to companies with at least four years of operating results and revenues less than $50 million, except in the most recent fiscal year. Criteria included innovative products, strategic decisions leading to revenue growth, the strength of the management team (including the ability to raise capital), and the profitability of the company. The PACT Enterprise Awards remain the region’s most prestigious business honors for technology and healthcare companies, leaders, and entrepreneurs.

The PACT Enterprise Awards are presented annually at a black-tie gala that attracts more than 1,200 prominent business leaders to celebrate achievement, innovation, and success in the Greater Philadelphia region. This year it was held at the Hilton City Avenue on May 3. The Enterprise Awards are just one facet of PACT, the Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies, which aims to create a strategic Hub for the region’s emerging growth companies in the information technology, clean technology, and healthcare industries, manifesting in a competitive edge for the Greater Philadelphia region.

About NextDocs Corporation

NextDocs is the global leader in providing Microsoft SharePoint-based compliance software solutions including quality management software, regulatory document management, and clinical portals. Our solutions enable businesses in regulated industries to achieve compliance with FDA and other agencies while automating processes, improving efficiency, and dramatically reducing costs. NextDocs customers include Pharmaceutical companies, Bio-Techs, Medical Device companies, and CROs. For more information on NextDocs Corporation and its software solutions visit www.nextdocs.com.

Contacts

NextDocs Media Contact:
Matt McLoughlin, 610-228-2123
[email protected]

ExactTarget Earns New Facebook® Preferred Marketing Developer Status

by OpenView

Global interactive marketing provider ExactTarget (NYSE:ET) announced today that it has earned Facebook ® Preferred Marketing Developer status for App and Pages development.

Designed to recognize companies that have developed leading technologies ranging from Facebook Page management and solutions to services and platforms for building socially enabled integrations, the new Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer status identifies ExactTarget’s strength in social media product development.

“We’ve continued to invest in delivering marketers a powerful suite of applications to easily integrate Facebook into their broader interactive marketing mix,” said Scott Dorsey, ExactTarget co-founder and chief executive officer. “Being among the first cross-channel platforms to achieve Preferred Marketing Developer status underscores the strength of our suite of cross-channel interactive marketing applications and highlights our unique ability to help marketers meet the needs of today’s hyper-connected consumers across email, mobile, social media and the Web.”

Built on a single software as a service platform, ExactTarget’s suite of products include applications to power data-driven email marketing, mobile marketing, Twitter and Facebook engagement and Facebook Page publishing. ExactTarget’s applications are available as full-functioning stand-alone products and can be integrated to power cross-channel engagement through ExactTarget’s Interactive Marketing Hub.

The company’s suite of social media products include:

  • SocialEngage: ExactTarget’s social media management application that enables teams to manage multiple social media accounts and power real-time engagement on Facebook and Twitter.
  • SocialPages: ExactTarget’s Facebook Page publishing solution that provides a drag and drop interface to create and manage branded Facebook tabs and monitor real-time performance.

More than 70 percent of online Americans use Facebook at least weekly, and 20 percent of those have made a purchase after receiving a marketing message on Facebook, according to ExactTarget’s recently released 2012 Channel Preference Survey. The survey of nearly 1,500 consumers found nearly a third (32 percent) of teens (ages 15-17) have made a purchase after receiving a marketing message on Facebook.

The news of ExactTarget earning Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer status follows the launch of the company’s new e-Book, “Facebook Marketing: Email’s Next Frontier.” Authored by acclaimed social strategist Jay Baer, the book offers practical examples and quick tips for integrating Facebook and email and includes new insight on consumers’ expectations across the two channels. For a complimentary copy of the eBook, visit www.ExactTarget.com/FacebookandEmail.

About ExactTarget

ExactTarget is a leading global provider of email marketing and cross-channel interactive marketing software-as-a-service solutions that empower organizations of all sizes to communicate with their customers through email, mobile, social media and websites. ExactTarget’s powerful suite of integrated applications enable marketers to plan, automate, deliver and optimize data-driven interactive marketing and real-time communications to drive customer engagement, increase sales and improve return on marketing investment. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana with offices across North America and in Europe, South America and Australia, ExactTarget trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “ET.” For more information, visit www.ExactTarget.com.

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc.

Contacts

ExactTarget
Media Contact:
Kari Brownsberger, 312-329-3980
[email protected]
or
Mitch Frazier, 317-275-5034
[email protected]

Acronis Selected as a 2012 Red Herring Top 100 Europe Winner

by OpenView

Acronis has been included in Red Herring’s Top 100 Europe award which recognizes the leading private companies in Europe, celebrating innovation and success across the telecommunications, security, Web 2.0, software, hardware, biotech, mobile and other industries.

Red Herring’s Top 100 Europe list has become a mark of distinction for identifying promising new companies and entrepreneurs. Red Herring editors were among the first to recognize that companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Skype, Salesforce.com, YouTube, and eBay would change the way we live and work.

“Choosing the companies with the strongest potential was by no means a small feat,” said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. “After rigorous contemplation and discussion, we narrowed our list down from hundreds of candidates from across Europe to the Top 100 Winners. We believe Acronis embodies the vision, drive and innovation that define a successful entrepreneurial venture. Acronis should be proud of its accomplishment, as the competition was the strongest it has ever been.”

“Staying at the forefront in today’s competitive market requires a strong combination of vision and innovation driven by a talented team. I am honored that Acronis is included in this community of companies and entrepreneurs that share these qualities,” says Alex Pinchev, President and CEO at Acronis. “The widespread adoption of virtualization and the rise in the use of cloud services is forcing companies to change their approach to disaster recovery. Acronis has a decade of investment in research and development, and we are delivering next-generation technology to meet the dynamic needs of the storage and data protection market.”

Red Herring’s editorial staff evaluated the companies on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, management quality, strategy, and market penetration. This assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the track record and standing of startups relative to their peers, allowing Red Herring to see past the “buzz” and make the list a valuable instrument of discovery and advocacy for the most promising new business models in Europe.

About Acronis

Acronis is a leading provider of easy-to-use disaster recovery and data protection solutions for physical, virtual and cloud environments. Its patented disk imaging technology enables corporations, SMBs and consumers to protect their digital assets. With Acronis’ disaster recovery, deployment and migration software, users protect their digital information, maintain business continuity and reduce downtime.

Acronis software is sold in more than 90 countries and available in up to 14 languages. For additional information, please visit www.acronis.com. Follow Acronis on Twitter: http://twitter.com/acronis

Acronis® and the Acronis logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Acronis Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.

Contact Information

Press Contacts
Lucy Millington
Acronis, Inc.
T: 781.782.9181
E: [email protected]

Meredith L. Eaton
March Communications
T: 617.960.9877
E: [email protected]

VersionOne and LeanKit Launch Advanced Kanban Solution

by OpenView

VersionOne, recognized by agile practitioners as the leader in agile management tools, and LeanKit, makers of the Lean software world’s most powerful Kanban tool, today announced the availability of their integrated solution providing sophisticated Kanban workflow visualization and Lean metrics capabilities.

The solution enables organizations to meet the needs of advanced Kanban teams while continuing to consolidate all their agile projects in a single system for multi-level planning, cross-team visibility and rollup reporting across the entire portfolio.

VersionOne’s Kanban boards are highly effective for teams using lightweight Kanban workflow processes – such as those practicing Scrumban or Lean methods within iterations. VersionOne with LeanKit Kanban is designed to meet the needs of teams with more sophisticated Kanban needs, including the ability to build visual models of more complex processes and access to detailed Lean metrics and reporting to optimize their workflow.

VersionOne with LeanKit Kanban is ideal for enterprises that practice multiple agile methodologies and need more sophisticated Kanban functionality at the team level. It provides a single agile project management system giving customers the flexibility to adopt multiple development approaches at the team-level, while giving stakeholders visibility into project status across all agile and Lean teams.

“For those teams who have adopted an advanced level of Kanban in their organizations, VersionOne with LeanKit Kanban provides an integrated, scalable solution to optimize workflow and enterprise-wide visibility,” said VersionOne’s CEO and President Robert Holler. “We are excited to work with LeanKit, as they have the most advanced Kanban tool in the marketplace. LeanKit’s reputation for flexible, easy-to-use visual management capabilities is a natural fit for our agile lifecycle management solutions in agile and lean environments.”

“The rapid adoption of Kanban has already been nothing short of amazing as the agile community has come to recognize the simple power of Lean visualization and analytics. LeanKit has been proud to be part of that, providing tools that help even the biggest global organizations to adopt Lean and Kanban,” said LeanKit’s CEO Chris Hefley. “We look forward to working with VersionOne and their customers to bring LeanKit’s best-of-breed Kanban solution to an even wider audience.”

About VersionOne

VersionOne is recognized by agile practitioners as the leader in agile project management tools. By simplifying the planning and tracking of agile projects, we help teams deliver better software faster. Since 2002, companies such as Adobe, Boeing, bwin, Intuit, Lilly, Lockheed Martin, Oppenheimer, Qualcomm, Sabre and Siemens have turned to VersionOne. Today more than 50,000 teams around the world use VersionOne. Agile Made Easier @ VersionOne.com.

About LeanKit

LeanKit is recognized by Lean community leaders and practitioners alike as the most flexible and powerful tool available for implementing the Kanban method. The company is also making a name for itself in the Lean community beyond software with ventures into construction, manufacturing, education, and more. Since its founding in 2009, LeanKit has grown rapidly to serve more than 50,000 users around the world at companies such as Spotify, Glaxo Smith Kline, NBC Universal, BBVA, Geico, CBS Interactive, and the government of Ontario, Canada. Enterprise Kanban @ LeanKitKanban.com.

Additional Resources:

For daily VersionOne and agile software news follow us on Google+, Twitter, Facebook and our blogs.
To keep up with LeanKit, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and our blog.

Balihoo Presents Webinar Series: Taking National Brands to Local Markets

by OpenView

Balihoo (www.balihoo.com), the premier provider of Local Marketing Automation (LMA) technology and services to national brands with local marketing needs, today announced a free webinar series designed to help national brand marketers implement effective local marketing activities.

The series of four, 30-minute webinars will be held Tuesdays in May at 12pm EDT, starting on May 8. To learn more and/or register: http://balihoo.com/webseries/May2012.

Webinar installments are:

The topics will be presented by Shane Vaughan, Balihoo CMO, and other local marketing experts, including Stevey Sherfy from GroupM Search and Ben Carmen from Localeze. They will be joined by additional marketing strategists from Balihoo who help national brands such as Kohler, Pearle Vision, Geico and 1-800-DOCTORS understand the digital space and the best ways to incorporate it into their national-to-local efforts.

“Local marketing is quickly becoming a necessity for national brands, especially those that rely on a network of local affiliates, dealers, distributors, franchisees or retailers,” commented Vaughan. “Without an effective online local marketing strategy, there’s a good chance national brands are losing visibility and sales at the local level and leaving revenue on the table.”

Attendees will learn:

  • Local marketing best practices for national brands
  • How to take advantage of “The Local Web”
  • Why national brands need local websites and how to implement them for 100s or 1000s of local sites
  • How to build and manage geo-targeted PPC campaigns for a network of local affiliates
  • How to create a local social media strategy to complement a national strategy
  • The best way to set up local business listings and why they’re important for increasing local sales

About Balihoo

Balihoo is the premier provider of Local Marketing Automation (LMA) technology and services to national brands with local marketing needs. By automating local marketing, Balihoo gives national brands unprecedented control over local marketing execution and the ability to control the customer experience closer to the point of purchase. Additional information about Balihoo is available at www.balihoo.com.

Contacts

Topaz Partners
Tom Francoeur, 781-404-2405
[email protected]