If you want to make a start with Lead Nurturing, what are the right questions to ask? And what are the decisions that you need to make? In this post I present a short checklist of questions to ask before you get started with lead nurturing: Do you want to nurture new leads, existing leads or both? How do you to segment your audience? Do you want a linear drip campaign, or rule-driven dynamic campaign (flow chart). Which content is available for nurturing? What frequency of emails and duration of campaign do you prefer? When do you send leads to sales? New Leads, Existing Leads, or Both? MORE >>

Oracle has just acquired Market2Lead , one of the early Marketing Automation vendors. There has been a lot of talk in the industry about possible consolidation, such as vendors going out of business, becoming irrelevant or being acquired. This is the first transaction involving a major software vendor, so it deserves some notice. Everybody expected Salesforce.com to make a first move, but Oracle surprised us here :- ). People asked my opinion on this acquisition. Overall, I think this is great news, for 7 reasons: 1. Market2Lead Probably Got A Good Deal. The result: not enough new customers. MORE >>

I’ve compiled a list of the events that matter: B2B Marketing Events for 2010. What are the key events to attend when you’d like to learn more about B2B Marketing, Marketing Automation, Lead Management? I’ve started with a much longer list, but decided to focus on those events where Marketing Automation vendors exhibit, and where the speakers cover lead management and marketing automation. Some featured events: Silverpop B2B Marketing University. I’m speaking at the B2B Marketing University. Sales & Marketing 2.0 Conference. conference this fall! Final Words. MORE >>

UPDATED REVIEW: My earlier review of HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing software was more than 1 year old and the software has evolved a lot: time for an update! see two clearly distinct target groups for HubSpot: Small business owners. Marketing departments at mid-size companies. Both groups will use HubSpot to generate more inbound leads, but they have vastly different requirements. Small businesses usually have no dedicated marketing resources, are less tech-savvy, and often don’t have a CRM system. HubSpot can serve both audiences, but in a different way. Small Businesses. Conclusion. MORE >>

On Saturday I presented a session about B2B Marketing Analytics at AnalyticsCamp in Chapel Hill ( slides here ). My specialty is Marketing Automation, but Analytics and Reporting come up in pretty much any project I do. Even though I almost flunked my Statistics class in college, there’s no denying that Marketing Automation and Marketing Analytics are two sides of the same coin. Why Analytics? Part of the attractiveness of Marketing Automation is that marketing processes finally become repeatable and measurable. But what exactly do they want to do with that information? Optimize ROI. MORE >>