Sometimes it’s What’s Missing That Counts I was reading MarketingSherpa’s 2009 Email Marketing Benchmarking Guide looking for useful metrics and tips. common theme in 2009 is that marketers need to prove the value of their marketing spend in even greater detail. Successful marketers are combining email with other channels such as SMS, direct mail, social media, tele-prospecting and recorded voice to maximize its effect. It would be very helpful to see which channels combined with email were the most successful in certain situations. Database Accuracy Metrics. MORE >>

Here are five beloved social media “rules” you should throw in the trash: Myth number one: “To be effective in social media, you must give up control of the conversation.” What HAS changed is that we can now more effectively listen to how people are responding to that marketing message and react to that response with speed and compassion. Marketers have been engaging with their customers since the dawn of advertising because it helps feed our families. And then these opinions get repeated and re-tweeted until these mindless jingles become part of the social media mantra. MORE >>

wanted to provide a checklist that helps organizations optimize their lead generation process. My first post highlighted the mindset we SHOULD have – one that involves “pulling” not pushing; one that will help to ensure we are engaging and helpful as marketers; in the second installment, I offered tips for repairing the rift between sales and marketing ; thirdly, I outlined steps for creating an ideal customer profile in addition to an un-Ideal customer profile. To help illustrate, I created a mind map of what multi-modal lead generation looks like (click image to enlarge). MORE >>

The marketing database plays a vital role in maximizing marketing effectiveness.  A lack of a centralized and complete marketing database impacts the marketer’s ability to both create and execute highly effective marketing strategy. The marketing database feeds the marketing mix, it helps determine which targets and segments a company should MORE >>

By including a call to action, you increase the chance your reader will look at information that will help them learn more about your company instead of having them go to Google and stumbling across your competition. As mentioned, a lot of calls to action that I saw were links to the home page, emails and phone numbers, none of which I consider to be especially effective. Stephanie Tilton provides two reasons why your white paper may not be as effective as you think.h One tenant of marketing is that all content should have a call to action. So what did I find? MORE >>