Web analytics has two main techniques: visitor tracking and visitor surveys. The first is quantitative and is served well by Google Analytics and similar tools. Salesforce.com by itself is already a pretty good CRM system, but it gets even better with almost 1,000 applications that are available through the AppExchange. With that many applications, it also gets more challenging to find the best applications. Therefore I’ve made a list of the 10 best marketing apps for salesforce.com. In no particular order: Salesforce for Google AdWords. SEO for Salesforce. DupeBlocker. MORE >>

Web analytics, email marketing, and content management). It’s amazing how a role can be redefined in just over a decade.  Take the role of Chief Marketing Officer.  When I was first hired as the CMO of WebEx in 1998, there was a pretty vague mandate to “build the brand&# and “support sales&#. In those days, that meant hire a PR firm and an ad agency and pump out press releases, print ads and glossy slicks for the sales guys. Then the Internet bubble burst and marketing had to show its impact on the sales pipeline.  Sound familiar? 2) Think Cloud. 3) Make sure its easy to use. MORE >>

Most marketers believe that more “budget&# and “analytics&# would help them realize their goals – not a huge surprise. This week’s chart focuses on what marketers need to overcome their greatest challenges and is taken from the B2B Marketing Skills Survey , a study that examined over 500 B2B marketers and asked them about their challenges, opportunities and changing role in the organization. Some of the results were surprising, others were validating. This chart What's required to meet marketing objectives falls in the latter category. Is this your experience? MORE >>

The good news is with online channels, it’s relatively easy to buy a small number of ads and track their effectiveness just with the built in analytics of each channel, usually for free. One of the hardest questions I get all the time from friends and colleagues starting a small business is “how do I get started with my sales and marketing?”  Usually followed by “should I use email?” or “should I set up a Facebook page for my business?” and “should I hire sales people?”. Tip #1:  Get your first customers “manually”. Now you can start to…. But also ask them what they read and where?  MORE >>

The interface for Meltwater is great, and they allow for geo-tagging and analytics. Here is a list of 9 social media tracking and monitoring tools. Some are paid-for and some are free. Many can be used together, and some integrate with others to maximize efficiency, tracking and response time. Enjoy, and do let us know of others you think should be on this list. Radian6. This is a paid listening service. Radian6 has a ?exible exible dashboard that enables monitoring all kinds of social media with real-time results. Radian6 helps you to identify in?uencers, Meltwater Buzz. SocialCast. MORE >>