Smart Marketing Digest

SPECIAL EDITION FUNDAMENTALS OF DIGITAL MARKETING

SMART

MARKETING Winter 20ƈ6 | www.smartmarkeঞngdigest.com

DIGEST

CONNECTING THE COGS IN YOUR

DIGITAL MARKETING MACHINE

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CONTENTS

02 RESPONSIVE WEBSITES

FALL 20 6

RESPONSIVE WEBSITES

02

WEB DESIGN

04

E COMMERCE

06

CONTENT MANAGEMENT

08

WEB HOSTING

0

SEO SOLUTIONS

4

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

6

ONLINE REPUTATION

8

EMAIL MARKETING

20

ONLINE VIDEO

24

CRM SOLUTIONS

26

DATA MANAGEMENT

RESP

SEO 4

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SMARTMARKETINGDIGEST.COM | WINTER 2016 |

1

WEB DESIGN

Does your website adapt to mul ple screen sizes?

RESPONSIVE WEBSITES

RESPONSIVE WEBSITES

RESPONSIVE WEBSITES

RESPONSIVE SIVE WEBSITES

6 REASONS why you need a mobile website MOBILE USAGE IS INCREASING.

The use of mobile devices to surf the web is growing at an astronomical pace, but unfortunately much of the web isn't optimized for those mobile devices.

Having a responsive design simply means that the layout of your website is reorganized based on screen-size and the capability of the device it is being viewed on.

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In , over % of Canadian Google searches were conducted using a mobile device. % of Canadians accessed the Internet exclusively with a mobile device. Last year, mobile browsing overtook desktop browsing with % of website visits coming from mobile devices.

2

RESPONSIVE SITES ARE HIGHLY RECOMMENDED BY GOOGLE.

Responsive websites have one URL and content source. This prevents your website from being penalized for duplicate content and makes indexing easier for search engine

providers. In its numerous suggestions on how to gain high rankings, Google has clearly stated that they prefer responsive designs over both desktop-only designs and separate mobile websites. If your website is only built for desktop devices and is not easy to navigate on a small screen, there is a good chance that the user will hit the back button, return to the search results page and go to another website. This short bounce-back rate is recorded as a vote of no confidence for your website by Google and can cause your ranking to drop.

3

INCREASE CONVERSION RATES.

Quite simply, when a user has to do more work than needed to complete a conversion, it is less likely that they will convert.

4

BETTER USER EXPERIENCE.

With responsive design, users don't have to fool around with zooming and shrinking text/images on-screen. This makes it easier and more convenient for users to read and navigate your website.

5

EASIER TO MANAGE.

Because responsive design only has one content source, you only need one campaign to handle the maintainance and search engine optimization of your website. If you have a separate mobile site, the amount of work and resources required to manage your web presence is doubled.

6

STAY AHEAD OF YOUR COMPETITION.

Chances are that your competitors aren't making use of responsive design yet. This means that they are losing out on potential customers.

You can appeal to those customers with an easier, more positive viewing and purchasing experience. In a recent test conducted by Google themselves, % of users say that if they arrive on a business site that isn't working well on their mobile device, they take it as an indication of the business simply not caring.

Your website is your online reflec on of your business to the world. Be sure to provide poten al customers with a user-friendly viewing experience.

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3

E-COMMERCE

TRANS ACTION ACCOUNT CCOUNT OUNT NUMBER

TO

TRANS ACTION

%

FROM

At tract New

CUSTOMERS

WITH E-COMMERCE E-Commerce offers businesses a vital opportunity to offer their customers round-the-clock convenience. More than ever, we are turning to the internet for more of our shopping needs.

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FIVE WAYS that e-commerce

will boost your business.

INFLUENCE PURCHASE DECISIONS.

done at the crack of dawn before the There are over billion domains kids get up, customers appreciate on the Internet, and thousands more the convenience of online shopping. are added every day. % of web People's lives are hectic; getting to a experiences start at a search engine. brick-and-mortar store means Your website’s visibility is crucial to taking a sizeable chunk out of their reaching your target audience and day for a detour. e-commerce means keeping your brand “top-of-mind”. you can fit into your customer's Optimizing your site can busy lives, offering the prodimprove your search ucts they want, when they engine rankings, thus want them. improving the likelihood of users visiting of the online BROADEN YOUR and remaining on BRAND. popula on has your site.

E-commerce can be used the internet used in ways that a to purchase traditional store can’t.

TAP INTO SOCIAL something.

Whether that is by MEDIA. offering intangible prodCustomers are turning to ucts, providing a filtered social media such as search, or being able to order a Facebook and Twitter to product to a customer’s exact speciresearch potential purchases. For a fications, e-commerce can be used smart business, an engaging social to broaden your range of products media presence can raise their for sale. company profile and encourage traffic and sales. A well thought out social media strategy marries well A PERSONALIZED EXPERIENCE. with a good e-commerce site, There are many ways in which forging connections with buyers. e-commerce can be used to forge a Offers, competitions and other more personal connection with shareable content can be used to customers.

For example, an e-comgrab attention and encourage visits merce site could include personal to your e-commerce store. recommendations, order tracking, quick customer service, or personCONVENIENCE alized rewards, allowing your Whether they're just getting business to offer the same kind of through the door after a 10-hour personal service online that you work day, or getting the shopping would offer face-to-face.

82%5

4

2

5

3

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5

CONTENT MANAGEMENT

Tired of having to call or email your web designer to get small content changes done? With a Content Management System, those days are long gone.

5

WAYS THAT A CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

will make managing and maintaining your website simple and affordable.

UPDATE ON YOUR OWN TERMS

A CMS cuts out the middle man and enables YOU to update and edit the content of your website. You’ll gain the ability to make your website more dynamic, more “to-the-minute”, and more valuable to your visitors. Simply log-in to your secure dashboard and click the “Edit” link and begin modifying content using easy drag n’ drop tools. Create or edit content, blog posts, photos and videos with ease.

The entire CMS interface was developed to make adding media to your web pages as user-friendly as possible.

2

PUBLISH AND PREVIEW UPDATES INSTANTLY

Using the “Preview” button lets you view how your web page is progressing without publishing it to the world. You can also save your page or blog as a “draft” and come back and finish it at a later time if you wish. When you’re all done, press the 6

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“Publish” or “Update” button to put your page live instantly with no wait time.

3

EASY FOR THE NON TECHNICALLY MINDED

Not all users have the same comfort level with technology, but the basic CMS functions of writing and publishing content, and slightly more advanced ones of adding media are usually easy for everyone to grasp. In fact, anyone who can use word-processing software can use a CMS for the basic functions – so you don’t even have to spend much time on training.

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ALLOWS MULTIPLE USERS

In a business, there are many people who can have input into your website, from those who add product pages to those who produce blog posts for your content marketing efforts. A CMS makes it easy to manage roles and publishing permissions for all these users so that only those you allow can publish content and content only goes live when you’re ready.

5

EASILY REDESIGN YOUR WEBSITE

With sites that are built on a CMS, the design is created separately from the content. So when you’re ready to change the look of your site, the old design can be lifted off and replaced with a new design with no problems. Links update automatically, so your customers continue to have a good experience on the site.

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A Content Management System will allow you to take control of your website without the need to pay excessive and recurring development fees for daily, rou ne updates.

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WEB HOSTING

DEDICATED WEB HOSTING 6 BENEFITS OF HOSTING YOUR WEBSITE ON A DEDICATED SERVER

What many consumers don’t realize is that not all web hosting solutions are created equal.

A lot of developers host their clients’ websites on “shared” servers that quickly get overloaded with hundreds of other peoples’ websites.

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PERFORMANCE AND RELIABILITY

A dedicated server offers unlimited bandwidth and disk space, and it enables you to have full control over the information and media that is accessed, shared and stored on your website. Since its processor power, disk space, memory and other system resources are not shared, it will not be slowed down or overwhelmed by traffic from other websites. Dedicated servers give you the best chance of never or rarely having to experience long downtime, which will save you money and traffic.

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EMAIL STABILITY

Your website and emails are major assets in your business and deserve only the best protection against anything and everything that can go wrong in the world of Internet and technology. Do not underestimate the importance of your business email, as it relates to your communication and ability to close sales. Whether you have one email address or 50, host all of your email accounts with a dedicated server and ensure that there are no interruptions in your day-to-day communication.

transactions. Customers need to be able to access the site quickly and efficiently and pay for their goods without any problems, otherwise they will shop elsewhere.

Faster speed, connecࢼvity and upload ࢼme

3

SPEED AND ACCESSIBILITY

If you want to give your visitors the best experience, a dedicated server may be the ideal option for you. It allows your visitors to log-in and access all your pages more quickly. This is especially important when you are running an online store, ecommerce website or a website that deals with financial

4

SECURITY AND SUPPORT

Since you are the only one who can access your dedicated server, you will enjoy a higher level of security. A dedicated server gives you a unique IP address for better privacy and security, and it offers the highest level of protection against malware and adware. With shared hosting, you share an IP address with other websites all over the world. If someone on a shared web host has a site full of spam or an adult site, this could affect your website rank and even get it blacklisted in Google. For security reasons, a dedicated web server is the best option for people who host e-commerce and shopping sites that requires SSL for credit card processing.

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SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Are poten al customers able to find you?

Appearing on major search engines ahead of your compe tors is the most cost-effec ve way to capture sales.

SEO 10 | FALL 2016 | CANLEADGEN

73%

of internet users never scroll past the first page of search results.

5 WAYS

that SEO will help generate the visitors that your website deserves.

SEO stands for search engine op miza on, which is the process of applying and adhering to specific pracঞces and guidelines to help ensure that a web page appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine a[er a query has been made.

INCREASE WEBSITE TRAFFIC

There are over million domains on the Internet, and thousands more are added every day. % of web experiences start at a search engine and % of users don’t look past the first page of results. Your website’s visibility is crucial to reaching your target audience and keeping your brand

top-of-mind. Optimizing your site can improve your search engine rankings, thus improving the likelihood of users visiting your site.

2

IMPROVE CREDIBILITY

If your site is easy to find, it’s more likely to be shared or used as a resource or reference. When other people cite or share your site, it improves your credibility as a business and as a subject matter expert. More than % of all site traffic and lead generation comes from earned media. You can help your site gain more earned media by incorporating SEO best practices.

3

BEAT YOUR COMPETITORS TO THE PUNCH

Have you been comparing your online presence to that of your competitors? Chances are, if you’re incorporating best SEO practices SMARTMARKETINGDIGEST.COM | WINTER 2016 |

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SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

(and your competition is not), you will rank before them in search results for your desired keywords.

Better SEO means potential clients have a higher chance of seeing what you have to offer first. You will get the first phone call, the first e-mail, or the first store visit over your competitor.

4

PERSUADE, SELL AND EDUCATE

An effective SEO strategy gets your information in front of your information in front of your target audience more often. This helps you achieve your online goals, as well as overall business goals. Search engines are the # driver of traffic, beating social media by more than %. The traffic potential of search engines is excellent, so

there’s no doubt that SEO should be a part of your regular website maintenance. If you haven’t implemented it yet, it’s not too late!

5

HELP BUILD YOUR BRAND

With higher rankings comes higher credibility and brand awareness, in addition to name and logo recognition. Aside from improved credibility, customers will inherently build trust with what they deem to be a recognized brand.

SEO is a con nual process, not a one- me, quick fix. Keeping your site op mized for search engines requires implemen ng constant research, evalua ng data, and frequently upda ng your content and prac ces. If done correctly, the results can help you reach your online goals and increase your revenue.

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SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Social media is your u FIVE WAYS THAT SOCIAL MEDIA WILL PLAY A ROLE IN THE GROWTH OF YOUR BUSINESS SHOWCASE YOUR BRAND

Developing a strong social media presence is an efficient way to build your company’s reputation and showcase your business. By regularly updating your prospects on all the brand and social happenings, they subconsciously start to view your company as an authority. Once you define your business objective, whether creating brand awareness, relationship building or driving new sales, you can work in parallel on all of them.

2

DEVELOP A LOYAL COMMUNITY OF PROSPECTS

In reality, people simply enjoy being part of a business that is proactively building a lively community. Studies have discovered that customers would purchase from businesses with an active Facebook business page rather than one without. An emotional connection with your prospects will vouch for your positive business reputation.

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Don’t let your comp in the socialsphere. Yo very well come v

l mate brand-builder

etitors beat you out our next prospect may via social media.

3

ENHANCE COMPANY TRUSTWORTHINESS

4

EXPAND SALES

Social media channels are proactive tools when it comes to increasing your company’s trustworthiness. By closely communicating with your clients on a social media level, you become a trusted source of information, which makes for a great asset when creating company awareness and brand credibility.

Prospects are more likely to become customers if you respond to their specific requirements in a prompt and personal manner. Social media helps you easily discover your customers’ preferences so that you can focus on meeting their needs and expectations, gain proficiency in that exact niche, excel your product list, and research your competitors.

5

CUT MARKETING COSTS

Social media marketing is one of the most affordable ways to brand your business. It has taken over print marketing and advertising.

Promoting your products on social media platforms will increase your return on investment. Using social media lets your advertising opportunities grow exponentially, while energizing your PR efforts without a huge money and time commitment.

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ONLINE REPUTATION

Your online reputa on is important to your business.

•

Monitor your online reputa on, while proac vely promo ng posi ve content with

ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT

DID YOU KNOW? 80% of consumers research products online every week. When a potential customer goes online to look up your business, hopefully they find something good. If you have not yet dived into managing your online reputation, now’s the time to start!

20% of Yelp reviews are fake. If you suspect that fake, negative reviews are being posted on your page, take action with an online reputation management strategy.

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70% of people trust the opinions of other customers who have posted online. Even though fake reviews are a huge problem on all the major review sites, most consumers still trust them. Now more than ever, people are turning to online reviews to make decisions about which businesses are going to get their money. By simply asking your customers for reviews, you can start collecting authentic testimonials that can persuade consumers into choosing your business.

35% of consumers use review sites when they had a bad experience, and only 23% use review sites when they had a good experience.

Make sure you’re treating your customers well, providing them with good experiences that they will want to share online. If you know you’ve done a good job, ask for an online review.

The average consumer consults 11 online reviews before making a purchase decision. Even if you’ve got a couple bad reviews, it’s alright!

Consumers don’t stop reading reviews after the first few. If you have honest reviews from loyal customers, curious consumers will likely keep you in mind as an option.

55% of consumers say that a high product ra ng will increase the likelihood of a purchase. If a consumer is on the fence about your product or service, good reviews and ratings can bring them over to your side.

A one-star increase in your ra ng can result in a 5-9% increase in revenue. Reviews can increase your revenue. It’s that simple. If that’s not incentive to start monitoring your online reviews more closely, then what is?

Today’s organiza ons are at the mercy of the 24/7 internet media. It is important to protect your e-reputa on and boost your digital presence with online reputa on management.

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EMAIL MARKETING

EMAIL MARKETING QUICKLY AND EASILY ENGAGE WITH YOUR AUDIENCE USING

FIVE BENEFITS OF USING EMAIL MARKETING Email is a great tool to interact and reach new, exis ng and future clients.

It is by far one of the most inexpensive forms of communica on.

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SAVE VALUABLE BUDGET DOLLARS

Save money and some trees! By going digital, you’ll avoid printing, paper, envelopes, mail handling, and postage costs.

2

INCREASE BRAND RECOGNITION

Get your brand image and name in front of your audience more often by including your logo, tagline, color palette, and brand graphics in the template design of your email communications.

3

CONNECT WITH YOUR TARGET MARKET

Email marketing helps you stay in touch with your audience on a regular basis, keeping you “top-of-mind” and at the tip of their tongue. This ensures that when your services, products, or programs are needed, they will buy from you, or refer their friends, family, peers and contacts to you.

4

INCREASE YOUR CREDIBILITY

Consistent and quality email marketing that is relevant, on-topic, and full of value will help you earn and grow the trust of your target market, making it much easier for you to then promote and sell your products and services.

5

EDUCATE YOUR CLIENTS

Your email newsletter is a great place to keep your clients up to date with what’s new in your business. By sharing your impending new products or services, you can also keep them informed of the products, services, and programs you have available for them — and perhaps entice them to hire you or buy from you again.

6

CREATE NEW STREAMS OF INCOME

You can use your email newsletter to recommend as an affiliate, products, programs, and services you have used yourself or truly believe in and earn commissions on any sales made from your referrals.

7

box. By entering their name and email, visitors give you permission to market to them by email and make offers to them by email.

Remember to promote your email newsletter via social media, on your website, when speaking, in products, and even in your email signature.

8

REACH A WIDER AUDIENCE

Drive your email newsletter subscribers back to your website by promoting recent blog posts in each issue. Repurpose your ezine content or archive your ezine articles on your blog to attract new visitors via social media.

Precisely target the needs of your audiences and move leads from conversion to commerce with email marke ng.

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EXPAND YOUR NETWORK

Email marketing helps you grow your network and build your list by allowing you to capture the email address through a website opt-in SMARTMARKETINGDIGEST.COM | WINTER 2016 |

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VIDEO MARKETING

Open your business to new markets and opportuni es with

VIDEO With today’s technology, video content is less costly, easier to create and more effec ve than ever.

Are you making the most of this powerful tool?

YouTube is the number two search engine in the world. Not Bing, not Yahoo, but YouTube. While everyone focuses so much on Google, YouTube is sitting there waiting to be used to generate leads. Video content should be a pillar of your digital content marketing strategy because, other than face-to-face interaction, a short video is the best tool to humanize your brand.

Videos increase your prospects’ understanding of your product by 74%. If you have a complex product, or are trying to raise awareness 20

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about a new innovation, videos help customers grasp new concepts.

Sketch videos have become a popular solution for this because the format allows you to imagine someone standing in front of you with a whiteboard, using simple drawings and dialogue to explain how a product works.

26% of internet users look for more informa on a er viewing a video. If you present a well-targeted video advertisement that lasts in the consumer’s mind, it will generate more views. If one picture is worth

a thousand words, then mathematically, a one-minute video is worth 1.8 million words.

70% of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video within 2016.

70% is an overwhelming chunk of data. A mobile video presence will be mandatory for business by this time. The benefit of having a video that is easily accessible on a mobile device is that the attention span of users watching videos on a smartphone or tablet is much higher when compared to desktop viewers.

reports mobile video consump on rises 100% every year

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The average user spends 88% more me on a website that has at least one short marke ng Video.

Google and other search engine providers track the average time that users spend on your website.

They then implement this data into the system used to determine which websites rank higher than others.

Websites with low bounce-back rates, longer page views and more “click-throughs” always win. Not only do videos attract more usage within your website, they also do a very good job of keeping customers interested in your products and services.

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CRM SOLUTIONS

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT By using the most effec ve CRM solu on, you can manage all of your sales and marke ng data in one loca on. A CRM system is a prac cal, inexpensive means for capturing and storing sales leads, prospects, and customer informa on in a single system. Here are five ways that CRM system will make your business run more smoothly IDENTIFY A CRM SYSTEM THAT FITS YOUR NEEDS

It can be challenging to gather and consider all of the factors that lead you to your ideal CRM system. A CRM specialist can assist you to find the perfect CRM solution and tailor it to fulfill your business’ goals and objectives and function seamlessly with your current systems and software.

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2

MONITOR MARKETING CAMPAIGNS

Discover precisely how well your campaigns are generating leads, whether or not the leads are converting into sales, and make educated improvements promptly and conveniently.

3

AN ORGANIZED VIEW OF YOUR SALES PIPELINE

Obtain immediate insight for open, closed, and lost sales opportunities.

Sales managers can check out the overall scheme of things and sales agents can concentrate on actual “sales versus quotas”, allowing them to more easily identify how to hit their targets.

4

EASILY ACCESS DATA AT YOUR OWN CONVENIENCE

Drill down into your account specifics, sales pipeline, and marketing

campaigns no matter where you are and no matter what time of day.

5

GENERATE ACCURATE PROJECTIONS

6

GENERATE REPORTS WITH THE PUSH OF A BUTTON

You will no longer require a room full of people, crunching numbers, to diagnose market trends and produce accurate forecasts. All of the insightful facts are right at your disposal, ready to be used for effortless forecasting.

Generate custom reports for your sales and customer service teams.

All you have to do is choose the important performance indicators that you require and drag-and-drop them into your report. Enjoy a definitive picture of sales pipeline value, agent efficiency, lead database accuracy and market segmentation.

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DATA MANAGEMENT

Be er data.

Be er business.

FIVE WAYS YOUR BUSINESS WILL BENEFIT FROM A DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEM The inner workings of a business are dependent on reliable, clean data. With a database management system, data can be categorized and structured to suit the needs of your company within a single so ware applica on.

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REGULARLY ORGANIZED AND CONSISTENT DATA

When duplicate data exists at different memory locations, there are chances that an application might update one of them while the other one will continue to contain the previous values. This will cause an inconsistency in the information that is stored. In DBMS, data redundancy is greatly reduced, and so, in almost all cases, only a single copy of data exists in the database, which all the different applications and programs share.

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REDUCE DATA REDUNDANCY

Many companies are faced with the challenge of data redundancy, where the same kind of data is stored in multiple locations, which proves to be a challenge when records need to be updated at every location. With a database management system, all the data from the dierent applications are integrated into a single database, on which various checks for duplicity can be performed, and multiple copies can be logically converted into a single one. This allows for a great reduction in data redundancy, and prevents the wastage of memory.

3

SECURE, RELIABLE AND SAFE DATA

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The data in many organizations is highly sensitive, and may even be confidential. Unauthorized access can compromise the entire functioning of the organization. This can be eectively prevented with database management. The database administrator (DBA) can block or grant access as required, ensuring that SMARTMARKETINGDIGEST.COM | WINTER 2016 |

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DATA MANAGEMENT

only the person(s) having proper privileges is granted access to critical data. Thus, a DBMS is capable of providing security to the data in an organization.

4

ALLOWS DATA SHARING

Database management allows sharing of the same data among numerous applications and users.

The data is stored centrally (typically within servers), and a software-based locking mechanism is put in place to prevent two users from modifying it at the same time.

5

STREAMLINE DATA COLLECTION

Prospect data can be collected from multiple sources, including social media, your website, even from telephone inquiries and assem-

bled into one single “queue� for review and qualification, prior to being transferred to within your database. This reduces data contamination from non-verified data sources, ensuring your database remains relevant and accurate.

6

AUTOMATIC BACK UP

In a file-based computer system, the user has to create a backup of the data regularly to protect it from being damaged or lost in the event of system crash.

This process can be a very time-consuming and is prone to human error.

Most database management systems have a backup-and-recovery feature built in, that automatically backs-up all important data, and restores it when needed.

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