Now I know the title may sound cheesy, but there are actually some important lessons that many B2B marketers can learn from Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga is not just a pop celebrity, she is actually a marketing genius. The woman is relentless in telling a story of accepting yourself for whom you are and teaching self-respect. This is a very personal story she tells through her music and marketing platforms to inspire others who feel like outcasts or different. She speaks to her audience with understanding and connects with them in a very personal way. lesson many B2B marketers need to learn -badly. MORE >>

Whether writing blog posts, drafting lead nurturing emails, or shooting videos for their YouTube channel, successful inbound marketers are master content creators. But when you think about landing pages, most people jump to conversions. How often are people abandoning my form? Which treatment performed better? What's the page's bounce rate? How good all these metrics look, however, boils down to what you already do well: writing remarkable content. But writing effective landing page copy is a little different than writing, say, a blog post. 1) Use Action-Oriented Language. So what? 6) Format. MORE >>

Recently I read an article called “ Godless Barbarians at The Gates of IT ” by Ryan Skinner from a UK-based agency called  Velocity Partners. In the article, Ryan talks about how consumerization, the cloud and the real-time needs of startups are creating such a high rate of new technology adoption that it is out-pacing our ability as marketers to react and respond, let alone get ahead with effective strategies. One example cited is Dropbox, which I use on my personal PC to synchronize and backup photos, music I’ve licensed and other important documents across multiple devices. MORE >>

“Bacon makes everything better,” is a sign I have in my kitchen.  I thought of it recently w hile working with two clients that are implementing new technologies into their organizations.  The technology in and of itself will neither improve customer centricity nor ultimately business performance.  The new technology is the enabler to measure and improve client engagement.     Measurement is the Bacon. If you are asking yourself: Where is the greatest return for each marginal marketing dollar spent? What segment is having the best response to current marketing activities? Marketing Impact. MORE >>

We all want our reps to know exactly what’s going on in the customer organization. Often, this means honing reps’ discovery and questioning skills through periodic skills training. That said, despite clocking a number of training hours, reps continue to remain clueless on what matters most to customers. Want to know why? It’s because it’s not about reps’ ability, but rather reps’ willingness, to ask the right questions. In today’s world of complex solutions selling and the existence of multiple customer stakeholders in the purchase process, reps find it difficult to close deals. MORE >>