Our Blog
Big News: SmartBase Solutions Acquired Group 3 Marketing
SmartBase Solutions is excited to announce an acquisition of assets from Group 3 Marketing (G3M), a database marketing agency based in Minnesota. G3M provides a suite of marketing, database management, and fulfillment services for national brands by deploying loyalty programs on their database marketing platform. They focus on building customer loyalty for specialty retailers, internet retailers, and B2B marketers. [View the full press release here.] 2016 has been a year for growth at SmartBase. We’ve invested heavily in technology, people and strategy to create stronger solutions, provide better support for our clients and ultimately grow our business. Several weeks ago, we came upon an opportunity that we knew would be a perfect fit for mutual growth. We saw the potential in G3M’s talented staff as well as their strong technology platform. Powered by our SmartBase IQ data platform, G3M’s database marketing technology will be supercharged, enabling more opportunities for innovation and data-driven results for our clients. “As SmartBase Solutions continues to meet the changing needs of our clients, the addition of Group 3 Marketing capabilities and expertise aligns well with our growth strategy centered on data analytics and personalized marketing communications,” said Kris Lynch, SmartBase’s CEO. As we bring the G3M technology under our roof, we are doing our best to […]
More Big Data Analytics Events That You Shouldn’t Miss in 2016
Last November, we created a list of the Top 10 Big Data Analytics Conferences You Need To Know About in 2016 and it became a helpful guide for professionals wanting to navigate to the right analytics events this year. That list focused on the first half of 2016, so we’ve returned to finish what we’ve started. Here are our top picks for Data Analytics Events for 2016: June Big Data Tech 2016 When: June 7th 2016 Where: Bloomington, MN -> See more analytics events in the Twin Cities. Speakers: TBA Hashtag: #BigDataTech Tickets: Free, not yet up for grabs! Marketing Analytics Conference When: June 23-24th 2016 Where: Austin, TX Speakers: American Express, Prudential, Kellogg’s, Zappos.com, Facebook, Forbes Hashtag: #MAC2016 HURRY – May 3rd is the Early-Bird pricing cutoff! August Sports Analytics Innovation Summit When: August 23-24th 2016 Where: San Francisco, CA Speakers: US Soccer WNT, Gatorade, Oakland Raiders, Utah Jazz, Colorado Rapids Hashtag: #SportsSF September Healthcare Analytics Summit When: September 6-8th 2016 Where: Salt Lake City, UT Speakers: Allina Health, Health Catalyst, Stanford Health, Multi-Care Health System, John Hopkins Hashtag: #HAS16 October Chief Analytics Officer Fall Forum When: October 4-6th 2016 Where: New York, NY Speakers: State Farm, Mount […]
Upcoming Data Analytics Events in the Twin Cities
The Twin Cities have become a hub for awesome data analytics events, in large part due to user groups like Minneanalytics, but also because MN organizations have realized the value of data analytics and are trying to figure out how to make it work for them. A few of us from SmartBase attended the People Analytics Conference [PACON] last week, organized by Minneanalytics. While our team often helps clients use their data to streamline business processes and make business decisions, it was interesting to hear the specifics of how Human Resource departments from around the US are leveraging people data. PACON gave us the opportunity to geek out about data but also learn from our peers – something that we find extremely valuable. We want to share that value with you! We’ve compiled a list of upcoming analytics events in the Minneapolis/St Paul area – some that we’ll attend and others we only wish we could. [Has anyone invented a way to add more hours to the day?] Here they are: Big Data and Analytics University of St. Thomas, Minneapolis Campus: Terrence Hall #252 Wednesday, April 13, 2016 from 5:30 – 7:30 PM (CDT) 1000 LaSalle Avenue Terrence Murphy Hall: Room 252, Minneapolis, MN 55403 The Details: ACHE-MN Chapter has […]
From Mad Men Advertising to Rabbit Hole Marketing – A Recap
We came, we ate breakfast, we learned – all before the blizzard hit. Pretty good timing on the Business Marketing Association’s part. Any marketer knows, the way to an audience’s heart is great information presented in a fun engaging way. As the panelists discussed their journey through the world of digital, I had to keep looking around to remind myself that I wasn’t in fact at Acme Comedy Club. If they are marketers by day, they had to secretly grace the stages of comedy joints at night – they were hilarious. The panelists included: Patrick Dunn – Director of Sales & Marketing at GetWireless Mike Bernard – VP of Services at Relationship One Jason McConnell – Director of Marketing Communications at Sport Ngin Bob Peterson – Research Director for SiriusDecisions The best part about this panel, besides their comedic flair, was that they provided a range of point of views, from consulting to corporate to startups, from B2B to B2C. The panel was moderated by our own Rebecca Ramsden, Director of Interactive Marketing. Bye Bye, Mad Men The days of Don Draper and telling consumers what/how to buy are over. They’ve taken over the selling process, leaving organizations in […]
Harness the Power of Hadoop for Marketing Automation.
We’re excited to announce that we’ve launched a new product, the Hadoop-Silverpop API Connector. SmartBase was the first to develop this kind of application between these popular tools – We’re really proud of it! So, what is it? Glad you asked! The Hadoop-Silverpop API Connector is an application that connects our Hadoop platform, also known as HURON, to your Silverpop marketing automation platform through API calls. HURON contains a proprietary processing engine inside the Hadoop structure that makes your data useful. As a marketer, being able to easily access to all of the data in your organization and actually use it is a dream scenario. This connector makes that dream possible! Typically, as seen above, Hadoop pushes the data to a relational store and that relational store feeds the Marketing automation platform. This doesn’t allow full use of the data you’ve collected and makes it complicated to bring in another data variable. Essentially, you’re restricted by the fields of the relational store. Our application connects to the platform itself to be able to access all of the data in Hadoop directly, cracking open the treasure chest of marketing campaign possibilities. What does it do? Our application manages your databases and relational […]
SBS Featured in 50 Most Powerful Big Data Vendors
SmartBase was pleased to be featured as one of the top 50 Most Powerful Big Data Vendors in CIO Story’s ‘Big Data Technology of 2015’ issue. As we’ve focused our organization back to our roots of data, we’ve found that this is where our clients can find the most growth in their organizations. Once your data is clean, accessible and analyzed, you can streamline operations, improve R&D and predict trends for the future. This is true of almost all industries and, as data grows exponentially, it won’t be something organizations can ignore for much longer. This is why we’ve created HURON, our Data Analytics Platform that is supported by Hadoop. HURON is a data lake that houses, processes and analyzes your data in a way that makes your data useful. Our proprietary data processing engine within HURON is the muscle that makes this analytics platform unique and effective. Here’s a little bit more about the platform from the CIO Story article: “The SBS Anlaytics Platform is a data lake that comes with pre-built functions for data acquisition and ingest, profiling and cleansing, data append and integration. It also boasts of industry leading discover and visualization tools for exploring data using various analytic […]
10 Big Data Analytics Conferences You Need to Know About in 2016
Because technology changes almost daily, keeping your data science skills polished will keep you a step ahead of the rest. Here are 10 data analytics conferences / summits / forums that we think will be helpful to you as you and your organization dive into 2016. We’ve included the hashtags of these conferences so even if you can’t make it, you’ll be able to follow along on social media for those golden nuggets of data wisdom. Enjoy! As we’re headed toward 2017, check out our list of data analytics conferences for the remainder of 2016. January Chief Analytics Officer Forum When: January 26-27th 2016 Where: New York, NY Speakers: 40+ Speakers – Charles Schwab, Affinity Health Plan, State Farm Insurance, Sharp Healthcare, McGraw-Hill Education Hashtag: #CAOForum Big Data Innovation Summit – ‘Making Your Data Actionable’ When: January 28-29th 2016 Where: Las Vegas, NV Speakers: eBay, Boeing, US Dept of Commerce, Groupon and GE Hashtag: #DataVegas16 February Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit – ‘Advancing Insight Through Data Science’ When: February 18-19th 2016 Where: San Diego, CA Speakers: TE Connectivity, Washington Post, LiveNation, XBOX, and LinkedIn Hashtag: #PASanDiego April Enterprise Data World – ‘The Transformation to Data-Driven Business Starts Here’ When: April 17-22nd […]
B2B Marketing Success Stories: Breaking Through the Clutter
As B2B marketers, we hear a lot about the problems, challenges and hardships we face. Do you ever wonder ‘where are the success stories?’ Us too. Along with the BMAMN, we’re excited to help share what’s working in the B2B marketing space right here in our backyard. Our own Director of Interactive Marketing, Rebecca Ramsden, will be facilitating a panel discussion with other Minnesota marketing leaders from Deluxe, Alignex, Salo and Turck. The panelists will share their successes and reveal how they did it – and how you can too. Are you on Twitter? You can follow them here: Cameron Potts – VP Public Relations, Deluxe – @campotts Nicole Yager – Director of Marketing, Alignex – @nicoleyager Maureen Sullivan – Director of Marketing, Salo – @mesullivan9 Chris Vitale – Director of Marketing, TURCK – @chris_vitale SmartBase Solutions – @SmartBaseMN (Shameless plug) Who is this event for? Marketing professionals in B2B companies who are looking for creative and effective content marketing techniques that will help their message to stand above the rest. Details: Success Stories: Breaking Through the Clutter August 4, 2015 – 7:30 to 9:30 am Breakfast | Presentation | Q&A | Networking Metropolitan Ballroom & Clubroom Register today to learn what successful Minnesota businesses are doing with video, storytelling, […]
Apple, Taylor Swift and Customer Loyalty
I won’t give you the entire backstory between Apple and Taylor Swift. You can read that here. I’ll just refer to the bones of the story. Taylor Swift didn’t agree with a decision made by Apple and she did what a lot of people do: She shared her thoughts about it with her followers on social media. On Sunday morning she wrote a letter to Apple on Tumblr, a popular blogging social network, and it was ‘hearted’ by 70k+ of her extremely loyal fans. It was also picked up by several news sites you may have heard of, like the NY Times, Forbes, and Fortune. As an influencer with millions of fans all over the world that are waiting intently to hear/see what she is saying and doing next, it’s obviously advisable to listen when Taylor has a gripe. Especially because Taylor is known for using her influencer power to speak for those whose voices aren’t often heard. Not everyone has Taylor’s status, but companies should treat each of their customers as if they were Taylor-sized influencers. And I’m going to tell you why. Are you listening? Now a disheartening statistic brought to you by Sprout Social: 5 out of every 6 attempts to interact with a brand on […]
SmartBase Office Relocation: We’re Moving to North Loop!
Over the last 6 months, we’ve been focused on what we want the future to look like for SmartBase. We created a ‘Big Data’ offering that we’re calling Analytic Platform Solutions (APS). Adding this expertise to the SmartBase portfolio will be crucial for our customers in the next few years. The amount of data being created by your customers and your company is growing exponentially – We want you to be able to actually USE it! With more great offerings came the need for additional talented people to execute these services for clients like you. So we hired the best and now we are feeling a little bit squished in our current office space. The new space Our new office search started in St. Louis Park, Northeast Minneapolis and the North Loop. We narrowed it down to several options and then let every employee vote on where they’d like to work. In the end, the majority chose North Loop and we’re very excited to be moving! The new office is located in the Internet Exchange Building at 411 Washington Ave N. It was built in 1913 and the first tenant was the Studebaker Brothers manufacturing company. They used this building to assemble horse-drawn buggies and used the railroad behind the building to ship them […]