Tomorrow People

NOVEMBER 2, 2011

Winning new business shouldn’t be a gamble, especially in tough economic times. Yet too many companies continue to risk their budget for the poor returns of traditional advertising such as media and print advertising. It’s been proven that businesses that keep in marketing in a recession are the ones that do well in the long-term. Building and maintaining a powerful business presence is important, but traditional advertising is still leaving many companies behind.

Advertising Agencies 227

Advertising Agencies Advertising Advertisements Paid Search Agency 227

markempa

NOVEMBER 9, 2011

Tweet If you’re struggling with managing social media programs in the B2B marketplace, Zuzia Soldenhoff-Thorpe (pictured at below) has some news for you: Most of your peers are too. Why is she so certain? As a research manager for MECLABS Conversion Group, Zuzia spent two full days at MarketingSherpa’s B2B Summit in San Francisco providing one-on-one coaching to some of the nation’s leading B2B marketers.

Social Media 218

Social Media Work Management Peer-to-peer B2B 218

Customer Experience Matrix

NOVEMBER 15, 2011

I presented my Seven Deadly Sins of Marketing Automation Software Selection during last week’s Webinar with Neolane. (To replay the Webinar, click here.) If you’re wondering how many companies actually commit those sins, the sad answer is: a lot. Here are some statistics. About half of buyers consider only one system , I’m told by various vendors. Some may have known exactly what they needed in advance, but the great majority are just buying the first system that seems to do what they need.

Marketing Automation Services 215

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Automation RFP Automation 215

Webbiquity

NOVEMBER 17, 2011

Note: a version of this original post appeared previously on the B2B Twitterer of the Year (B2BTOTY) blog. If you regularly read blogs like this, you’re probably already a Twitter pro. This post will be review for you. But, you also almost certainly come across new followers and others who haven’t attained your level of expertise. You know the type.

Twitter 196

Twitter Broadcasting Social Media Automation 196

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ViewPoint

NOVEMBER 29, 2011

I am deeply honored to be selected as a finalist in two categories for the 2011 Top Sales & Marketing Awards. Now in its second year, the Top Sales & Marketing Awards combine peer voting with a judging panel of industry experts to recognize leading sales and marketing books, articles, thought leaders, solutions, resources and tools. " target="_blank">.

Peer-to-peer 191

Peer-to-peer Lead Ranking Paid Search Agency Sales Qualified Leads 191

Tomorrow People

NOVEMBER 8, 2011

The day we've all been waiting for in anticipation is finally here (kind of). Earlier today, Google announced the launch of Google+ Pages , or business pages for Google+. While Pages have only been released to a select few businesses, Google+ indicates that organizations will be able to create their own pages at [link]. ( Visit Tomorrow People's Google+ Page and add it to your Circles here!

Google 225

Google Business Social Networks User-Generated Content 225

markempa

NOVEMBER 21, 2011

Tweet. SiriusDecisions made a brilliant contribution to B2B marketing several years ago when they created their Demand Waterfall. That “waterfall” is a metaphor for key funnel stages. It seems like everyone I talk to who works in the technology industry, which is an early adopter of marketing innovations, uses the Demand Waterfall framework. The concept is useful for any B2B industry with complex sales.

Lead Ranking 201

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads High Quality Lead 201

Customer Experience Matrix

NOVEMBER 7, 2011

I’ll be giving a Webinar this Thursday on evaluating marketing automation software, sponsored by Neolane. Part of the content will be a list of Seven Deadly Sins of Marketing System Selection. I thought that was worth a blog post of its own. So here goes. 1. Ignoring Users. Selection teams often don’t take the the time to understand how future users of the system do their jobs today.

Marketing Automation Services 187

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Automation Automation Vendors 187

Webbiquity

NOVEMBER 8, 2011

Vocus and Cision are both powerful and popular PR monitoring and management systems. Both provide PR and social media professionals with extensive capabilities for tracking and growing media coverage of their organizations or clients. Among their features: • An extensive database of professional journalists and social media influencers, with biographical information. • Ability to monitor media coverage and brand mentions across a very wide range of sources. • Capability to set up monitoring prof

Work Management 189

Work Management Marketing Management PR Tools 189

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Writing on the Web

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

The study of the buying decision process, or neuromarketing, has had a tremendous impact on content marketing. More brands are being studied in laboratories around the world as consumers are being hooked up to brain imaging machines, fMRI , EEG and other devices so that they are monitored while they read marketing messages and make decisions. Neuromarketing is extremely expensive market research to do, but fortunately most brains work the same, with some exceptions for age and gender.

Buy 187

Buy Research Trigger Marketing Studies 187

ViewPoint

NOVEMBER 7, 2011

At first glance, the idea of outsourcing strategic account management may seem absurd. After all, B2B companies usually define strategic accounts as their best customers and prospects based on criteria like potential for revenue, profit and growth. So how could it make sense to use outside resources to engage with target companies this valuable? The line of thinking goes something like this: “Outside resources cannot possibly understand what our sales reps and account managers know about o

Work Management 184

Work Management Marketing Management Sales Qualified Leads Lead Nurturing 184

Tomorrow People

NOVEMBER 21, 2011

SEO: What’s so surprising about SEO? The popularity of SEO as a business marketing activity is no surprise. Recent research has shown that nearly 60% of purchases made in a surveyed group started with a search, rather than with company websites or social media ( Source: GroupM and comScore ). With the number of internet users in the UK predicted to grow to an estimated 43.7 million by 2012 ( Source: eMarketer ), the popularity of search marketing is set to continue.

Search Engine Marketing 190

Search Engine Marketing Top of Funnel Search Marketing Effectiveness 190

markempa

NOVEMBER 1, 2011

Tweet I just got back from this year’s round of MarketingSherpa B2B Summits in Boston and San Francisco, where I provided one-on-one coaching to attendees, marketers from Fortune 500 organizations, leading private companies, and emerging businesses. (You can read more about who attended here.). Frankly, I don’t know who walks away more enlightened – the marketers I was coaching or me.

Ideal Customer Profiles 198

Ideal Customer Profiles B2B Marketing Work Management Top of Funnel 198

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Paper

Customer Experience Matrix

NOVEMBER 16, 2011

Marketo this morning announced a new $50 million funding round, almost exactly one year to the day after raising $25 million in November 2010. In accompanying commentary, the company also revealed its 2010 revenue was $14 million, that it expects 140% revenue growth in 2011 (meaning about $34 million), and that it has about $70 million remaining of its total $107 million raised to date.

Marketo 186

Marketo Eloqua Comparison Acquisitions 186

Marketing Insider Group

NOVEMBER 29, 2011

Are you thinking about getting started in social media personally? Don’t worry, you are not alone. You are not the last one to drag your feet a bit and jump on the social bandwagon! But if you are still holding on to some of the common excuses such as “I’m too old,” (bullsh*t) “I don’t have time,” (bullsh*t) “I don’t see the value,” (bullsh*t) or “I don’t know how…” (why I wrote this post) then let me tell you th

Social Media 172

Social Media Media Lead Ranking Lead Scoring 172

Writing on the Web

NOVEMBER 11, 2011

Content marketing experts and the people who write marketing messages ought to understand how consumers’ brains work if they want to engage and create trust and loyalty. The problem lies in assuming people are in charge of their own choices… Everybody thinks they are in control of their behaviors and decisions. We think we are rational, logical, and smart human beings.

Trigger Marketing 180

Trigger Marketing Loyalty Focus Group Tagging 180

ViewPoint

NOVEMBER 10, 2011

James Obermayer, Executive Director and CEO of the Sales Lead Management Association and President of Sales Leakage Consulting is a regular guest blogger with ViewPoint. Andy Rooney, probably the best known commentator of his time, who at 92 years passed too soon on November 4 th , said, “I've learned. that opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.

Sales Leads 182

Sales Leads Sales Qualified Leads Marketing Qualified Leads Leads 182

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Social Media

Tomorrow People

NOVEMBER 7, 2011

Business spend on traditional advertising is falling whilst spend on newer channels such as social media continues to grow. So does this mean the end of advertising and the traditional advertising agency approach as we know it? Older forms of advertising such as TV and print ads are looking outdated compared with new ways of combining content marketing , marketing technolog y and social media.

Advertising Agencies 190

Advertising Agencies Advertising Advertisements Paid Search Agency 190

markempa

NOVEMBER 23, 2011

Tweet In my post earlier this week , I outlined the challenge presented by SiriusDecisions’ Demand Waterfall taxonomy, specifically with the phrase “Marketing-Qualified Leads” (MQLs). Another problematic phrase is “sales-accepted leads.”. Often, funnels leak the most during the handoff between sales and marketing. Invariably, marketing blames sales and sales blames marketing.

Marketing Qualified Leads 189

Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking Sales Qualified Leads High Quality Lead 189

Customer Experience Matrix

NOVEMBER 19, 2011

It’s time to wrap up this series of posts on marketing automation vendor selection, which were based on my November 10 Webinar with Neolane (replay available here ). I’ve summarized them in three commandments. Forget the Past. Marketers have been doing such a bad job of selecting systems that they should forget their old approach and start from scratch.

Marketing Automation Services 172

Marketing Automation Services Vendors Marketing Automation Automation 172

Marketing Insider Group

NOVEMBER 15, 2011

A year ago, Forrester released their CMO Mandate: Adapt or Perish where they spoke about the large number of CMOs who are seeking to transform their upended marketing organizations in 2011. The reason for this change agenda, they said, was due to the havoc being brought by a combination of technology-empowered buyers, old-school marketing mindsets and the rush to outsource digital and content marketing to fill the gap created by their own team’s outdated skills.

Social Marketing 166

Social Marketing B2B Marketing Paid Search Agency B2B 166

Speaker: Jeff Tarran, COO, Gunderson Direct & Margaret Pepe, Executive Director of Product Management, U.S. Postal Service

Learn the secrets to direct mail success for growth marketers! Industry veterans Jeff Tarran and Margaret Pepe are here to delve into how direct mail has completely evolved in recent years, and has rightfully earned a seat at the table alongside the email and digital marketing plans of SMBs, enterprise companies, and agencies as they look into strategy for 2024 and beyond.

Planning

Buzz Marketing for Technology

NOVEMBER 9, 2011

Social media definitely pays off, but you’ve got to focus on the approach not the tools. Social Media has hit the mainstream these days but the big concern on every product marketer’s mind has been how to justify the ROI? Never is that more true than at budget time. The purse string holders might harbor unspoken thoughts like: “We spend big bucks on those developers, customer support and sales engineering people.

Social Media 165

Social Media Media Paid Search Agency Word of Mouth 165

NuSpark Consulting

NOVEMBER 16, 2011

So I was reading with some interest the 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report from Marketing Sherpa because I always like to see B2B marketers’ top challenges in their businesses, which not surprisingly, is generating quality leads. 78% of their biggest challenge is generating quality leads. Second on the list is generating a high volume of leads; 49%.

Paid Search Agency 165

Paid Search Agency Lead Generation Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 165

Tomorrow People

NOVEMBER 14, 2011

SEO: never done and dusted. “We did all our SEO marketing last year. We just sat down one evening, looked up some keywords and added them to our site. So our SEO is done and dusted.” It’s a common claim amongst business-owners and it’s one of the reasons that many businesses are still missing out when it comes to website SEO.

SEO 190

SEO Inbound Marketing Keywords Internet Marketing 190

Writing on the Web

NOVEMBER 22, 2011

If you are writing content designed to persuade and influence, you need to know what makes people tick. ( photo courtesy of digitalart/FreeDigitalPhotos.net ). There are universal drives that are common in all human beings, across cultures, across the globe. When you create content that appeals to either of these four basic drives, you can’t help but engage the hearts and minds of readers on a profound level.

Studies 163

Studies Trust Marketing Resources Content 163

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Customer Experience Matrix

NOVEMBER 16, 2011

My last two posts (not counting this morning’s detour into Marketo-land) described common errors marketers make when selecting marketing automation systems. How did we come to this? I see two reasons: Marketers are like everybody else. Remember all that yammering about how today’s buyers do their own research, don’t talk to sales until late in the process, and get their information from social media rather than experts?

Work Management 168

Work Management Marketing Automation Services Marketing Management Vendors 168

Marketing Insider Group

NOVEMBER 1, 2011

All over the world, Twitter is getting more and more popular every day. Once a site for developers and bloggers, Twitter has hit the mainstream of news, politics, sports and entertainment. That popularity affects the number of registered Twitter users and now Twitter has more than 200 million of them. That introduction should be enough to show the “big potential” of that “small” micro-blogging platform.

Twitter 162

Twitter Blogger Differentiation Efficiency 162

Buzz Marketing for Technology

NOVEMBER 16, 2011

Chief Marketing Officers take pride in being the trendsetters around the corporate corral – the arbiters of hip, the sharpest dressers, the consummate gadgeteers. But when it comes to using data to support decision making, the CMO is likely not to be the smoothest operator. Each year the Marketing team works hard to distill consumer insights into planning documents that will guide its programs in the months ahead.

Planning 163

Planning Paid Search Agency Budget Programs CMO 163