Back on September 20, I posted various tips from the Inbound Marketing Summit and HubSpot User Group. Naturally, the conference also included public and private discussions of HubSpot itself, but I thought those were best shared in a separate post. Here goes. The conference yielded a clear picture of HubSpot’s business strategy for the coming year. This strategy has two main elements, which were set out by CEO Brian Halligan in his keynote: - expansion to “middle of funnel” marketing. In concrete terms, it involves blogging, search engine optimization of Websites, and social media messages. MORE >>

The world clearly has more B2B marketing automation vendors than it needs – my master list of demand generation products includes two dozen. By contrast, mid-tier consumer marketers often have a hard time finding good options. The major B2C marketing automation vendors -- IBM/Unica , Teradata/Aprimo , and SAS are more attuned to the enterprise market. Here are some others, in rough order of industry familiarity: Alterian – extends beyond multi-channel campaign management to include Web content management, Web analytics, and social media monitoring. Decision Software Inc. MORE >>

I spent yesterday prowling the exhibit hall at the Direct Marketing Association annual conference in Boston. This uncovered several additional candidates for mid-tier business-to-consumer marketing automation. ll list them here and also add them to my previous list of mid-tier marketing automation systems so that future visitors will find the complete set in one place. This products below are a somewhat arbitrary selection, since pretty much every printer, service bureau, and email provider has a list selection tool. Can be hosted by a service provider or run on-premise by the client. MORE >>

As I wrote yesterday, no one knows exactly what we’ll want from our marketing automation systems in the future. But it's still worth taking a guess at what looks likely. Here are some trends I expect will be important. Social Media. The first wave of marketing automation features for social media is now several years old. These included making it easier to share emails and Web pages, tracking shares through embedded URLs, and monitoring social media conversations. The second wave is just starting. Mobile. But the focus is now shifting to marketing campaigns that are delivered by mobile. Video. MORE >>

One of the few dependable rules in the software industry is that Suites Win. When a market first develops, it is filled with “point solutions” that do one function – say, send emails or analyze Web traffic. Over time, products emerge that combine these functions and displace the individual point solutions. Even though the point solutions may be better at their particular task than the corresponding suite components, the time, cost, and risk savings of preintegrated products are irresistible to most buyers.* appear at a dizzying pace. The new version of RTD is still aimed at large enterprises. MORE >>