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Daryn Smith is the Executive Director of Product and Marketing at MPULL, a Marketing Software startup based in Cape Town. He has lead Marketing teams in Africa for Global brands before joining MPULL, and now merges two of his passions Marketing and Tech.

• CRM and automated marketing: understanding the difference

  Many people get confused between Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and Marketing Automation Software, and the majority of people think they are the same thing. However they are completely different, they both have very specific uses, but work well together.The primary purpose of a CRM system is to manage account and contact information, and track opportunities and manage the sales pipeline. Many CRM systems claim to have a marketing module, however the functionality is very basic, usually consisting of a ...

• Inbox zero: Could your company really survive without email?

  Twelve months ago, Thierry Breton, CEO of Atos, which has over 80 000 employees in 42 countries, set out an 18-month plan to ban internal email. Thousands of people from around the world have since commented on this announcement, some supporting it, others not, and many like me who thought it was not possible. There are six months left to go on his roll out plan, and I wonder how things are going.Initially when it was announced I assumed ...

• When should you give up on your digital leads?

  One of your primary responsibilities when you're in the business of targeting other businesses is to generate leads. Some do this through focused lead generation programs primarily through digital channels, while others take a more subtle approach through brand-related marketing.Most marketing teams go through a huge effort to generate a lead, and then they immediately hand it over to their sales team. That lead could have been someone just doing initial research on a purchase they plan to make, they ...

• How political parties can use mobile and social media to reach voters

  A political election is much like a marketing campaign showdown, and the team with the best product usually sways the biggest audience. Look at Barack Obama in his first campaign -- cited as the most successful “new marketer” in history for his ground-breaking use of online and social media to reach out to potential supporters.Finding the triggers to a nation’s touchpoints -- what policy matters to them, how they need to hear information and how best to get them this ...