What is IoT? In short it’s about network-connecting any computing device, gadget, appliance, machine or mechanism via the Internet. The impact for an online business would be: smart phones, office desktops, network server devices, the company website, company database systems, website back-end data of customer relationship management (CRM) and content management system (CMS), inner-office whole database - enterprise resource planning (ERP), company accounting applications, and almost any digital instrument you can think of. A recent article about The IoT in Forbes Magazine by Jacob Morgan says it’s a sophisticated network of connected machines and people. The relationships will be between people & people, people & devices, and devices & devices.
Growing-Up Your Company to Connected Data – Do you still think a website is just a digital brochure? Prepare to begin a correction in your direction by adjusting how you think about business
internet activity – it’s much more than just having a static brochure website. Are you feeling like your business is vanishing back into a portal of
time? Perhaps your companies infrastructure is bogged down with methods from the past century or even just the past ten years. Begin to adjust
to the ongoing technology that will carry you into the future of your business maturing into the Internet of Things. Growing-up your company into smart
network activity is now your most urgent push forward.
Online Data Inter-Connected – Capturing the full power of the internet of things (IoT) capabilities, it will soon bring you to realize the transformational value of these amazing inter-networking business solutions and market technologies. More and more devices are being created with networking capabilities which means your business website goes far beyond just a desktop computer or a mobile phone. Your website can no longer be just a digital booklet with nice pictures and text. Imagine all your online data inter-connected, keeping your business current, competitive and intelligent for the long-run. Go ahead! Sniff up a whiff of nostalgia and turn on your sausage maker. Grill up some delicious rib eyes. Begin to celebrate actionable steps you can now take to future-proof your business.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) at Work – Just for starters, Whenever somebody submits a webform, comments on a blog post or forum post, links back to a blog post, signs up for an Email marketing campaign or newsletter, makes a purchase, inquires about a product or service, or downloads a document, a modern online business platform creates a series of entries in the system database. This is your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) at work. For each particular site visitor you now have a record of their information or the transaction that had occurred.
Encourages Customer Trust and Loyalty – Recording customer relationship information in spreadsheets, card files or filing cabinet folders is not even on the way-back-machine nowadays. A modern website with a CRM software platform accumulates customer information in a relational database for multiple operations. For example: CRM software allows marketers and salespeople to organize and research correspondence with actual and potential customers. It enables following customers and prospects activities with the company website and preserves important information about them. When speaking to a customer, the marketer now knows who there’re talking to and sees their history with the company. This makes the interaction more personalized, increases the chances of conversion, and encourages customer trust and loyalty. A CRM system is an incredibly important tool for every business, helping to foster customer loyalty and cultivate it into healthy revenue.
Bonus Story – Turn on Your Sausage Maker
PICKLES IN THE SMOKE HOUSE – What’s your favorite food smell? Ahhh! The nasal nostalgia of smoked bacon, cured hams, and downtown restaurants grilling their tender delectables. These aromas trigger powerful childhood memories of certain events I remember. My grandfather owned a butcher business and a grocery store which provided some of my earliest ‘olfactory memories’. I can smell every detail of his smoke house, his storage bin of cured hams, the steaming cauldrons in the cook house, the sausage makers, and fresh meats displayed in the chilled cases. The smells of sawdust, salt and pepper, pickles, hickory wood, spices, and fresh cloths-line dried cotton transport me back through a portal of time.
AROMA WHIFF – During childhood we create
a multitude of memories that become triggered by particular smells. One specific smell can bring on a flood of memories. For me, it’s an instantaneous
emotional response whenever these aromas whiff through my senses. I recall the emotional connection to my grandparents family operated business. I
see the old-world European style of their butcher shop, the grocery isles, and the clerks wearing stiff white aprons and starched white shirts.