Marketing segmentation is about subdividing markets into segments of customers that have similar needs and behaviors. This way, vendors can optimize their product offering, marketing, and sales approach to meet the specific requirements of the segment better and more cost efficiently than the competition. But the craft of identifying and selecting the right segments is too often rushed and under-appreciated. In complex markets, segmentation is not trivial. And many companies simply don't allocate sufficient resources for defining the right segments. In short, they are more profitable. MORE >>

Happy New Year! It is January and time again for the obligatory 2011 predictions. Many marketing experts have strong opinions on what they think will happen in 2011. Instead of coming up with what I think is going to change in the B2B marketing world in 2011, I decided to ask you and tap into the combined wisdom of over 17,000 marketing professionals in the B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn. asked you to rank the marketing areas you think will become more important in 2011. Here are the key trends that B2B marketing professionals think are shaping B2B marketing in 2011. MORE >>

Earlier this week, I was on a panel at the WIT event "The Intersection of Marketing & Technology" in McLean, VA. One of the discussions was about the dramatic changes happening in B2B marketing today and what the future will hold. The question "Is traditional B2B marketing dead?" ignited a lively discussion. think we are experiencing nothing short of a major disruption in marketing today. It is easy to not see the forest for the trees when you are focused on the daily challenges of program execution. So let's take a step back and look at the big picture. MORE >>

Happy New Year! It is time again for our annual B2B Marketing "predictions". As every year, I asked the 25,000 marketing professionals in the B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn about their B2B marketing priorities for 2012. And here are the results: 1 - Integration of social media Social media remains the #1 topic in 2012. Social media has clearly evolved from the experimental stage to become an established marketing tactic and lead generator in 2011. 2 – Content marketing Content marketing went mainstream in 2011. The benefits of segmentation are substantial. MORE >>

The cloud is all the rage these days. Saugatuck Technology's Bruce Guptill released some interesting market research predicting that by 2014 the majority of new corporate B2B software purchases will be in the form of cloud software solutions (SaaS) rather than traditional on-premise software. This is a significant tipping point, after which adoption of cloud services is expected to further accelerate. What does this mean for B2B marketers selling cloud solutions and software as a service? think it will pretty much change the rules of the game, and in ways that are somewhat unpredictable today. MORE >>