When I asked members of the B2B Lead Generation Roundtable on LinkedIn how companies can improve alignment between sales and marketing, our discussion board was inundated with keen insight and brutal honesty. Marketers and sales professionals were clearly eager to square off about why we too often miss the mark and what we can do about it. Even though, as most of you know, I intensely study this issue, business transforms itself at light speed; that’s why I appreciate the thousands of professionals who make up the B2B Lead Generation Roundtable. Don’t take offense by a change in direction. MORE >>

Companies that adopt a closed-loop process connecting marketing and sales report a higher return on marketing investment (RMOI) than those that don’t. But RMOI just isn’t going to happen if your closed loop is a black hole. And that’s certainly the case at too many organizations judging from the feedback I received at my presentation this week at MarketingSherpa’s B2B Marketing Summit. If you want more details, Andrew Spoeth with Marketo wrote a good summary of what I had to say over Modern B2B Marketing blog.). Nearly everyone raised their hands and laughter erupted. MORE >>

Categories B2B Telemarketing Books Cold Calling CRM Current Affairs Direct Marketing Email Marketing Event Marketing Human Touch Lead Generation Lead Management Lead Nurturing Lead Qualification Leadership Marketing Strategy My Podcast Personal Messages Podcasting Public Relations (PR) Referral Marketing ROI Measurement Sales Sales Leads Social Media Thought Leadership Trigger Events Web/Tech Webcasts/Webinars Weblogs Word-of-Mouth Archives June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 More. MORE >>

Categories B2B Telemarketing Books Cold Calling CRM Current Affairs Direct Marketing Email Marketing Event Marketing Human Touch Lead Generation Lead Management Lead Nurturing Lead Qualification Leadership Marketing Strategy My Podcast Personal Messages Podcasting Public Relations (PR) Referral Marketing ROI Measurement Sales Sales Leads Social Media Thought Leadership Trigger Events Web/Tech Webcasts/Webinars Weblogs Word-of-Mouth Archives June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 More. MORE >>

If you lead a team of marketers, you likely have a creative bunch. People who, ideally, have a lot of passion about what they do – the key ingredient for successful social media and content marketing. But that natural passion can easily get buried under layers of indiscernible corporate fiat. So how do you help your team break free of the stultifying grind that makes the average enterprise run? How do you make sure they don’t just feel like a cog in the wheel mindlessly hewing to corporate policy and filling spreadsheets all day? Daniel Burstein: “Passion” and “heart.” DB: How do you do that? MORE >>