The Point

JULY 26, 2022

Why B2B campaigns that attempt to short cut the buyer journey are destined to disappoint

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The Point

JULY 27, 2018

It’s ironic then, that in an Age of Account-Based Marketing (ABM) and Intent Data and IP-based Advertising, when B2B marketers are looking for any short cut possible to find, meet, engage, and close the prospect who is ready to buy, that high bar offers are more and more popular. Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash.

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The Point

AUGUST 16, 2016

Origami Logic is a marketing analytics company and a global leader in marketing performance measurement. The company’s technology helps large brands master their marketing performance by unifying and refining their vast array of marketing data, across every channel and platform, so they can see what’s working and what’s not.

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The Point

JUNE 30, 2021

When it comes to what is, and isn’t, Account-Based Marketing (ABM) , there are as many opinions out there as there are ABM experts. Well, it matters only because many B2B marketers who haven’t yet stepped foot in the ABM waters are under pressure, from management or sales or both, to do so. Is One-to-One Marketing the Only True ABM?

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The Point

NOVEMBER 15, 2022

A client asks: “What’s the best way to market to purchased lists like ZoomInfo ? We have a debate between our marketing and sales teams on whether the best approach is marketing emails, sales outreach, or something else. How Should I Market to Purchased Lists? Re-market to those who click on ads but don’t complete a form.

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The Point

FEBRUARY 25, 2022

Just as too much time on Instagram fawning after the photoshopped lives of internet influencers can create an unhealthy self-image, marketers too can fall victim to unrealistic standards and FOMO created by the marketing blogosphere and the breathy propaganda of martech vendors. Marketing attribution is a good example.

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The Point

JUNE 25, 2019

[Thanks to Anne Angele, Spear’s esteemed Director of Marketing Technology, for this month’s guest post.]. Marketing attribution is a hot topic these days in B2B circles. Yet, for all the interest, precious few B2B companies achieve the holy grail of knowing exactly how – and where – their marketing investment impacts revenue.

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The Point

SEPTEMBER 23, 2016

In B2B email marketing , does short copy always win over long? You won’t see or find many shorter B2B emails than the one below from BounceX , a New York-based developer of “behavioral automation tools for digital marketers.” To me, this is a campaign that works. Not necessarily. But they didn’t. And that’s a good thing.

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The Point

APRIL 19, 2023

There’s an old truism in marketing that says the three most important success factors are (in order of priority): List, Offer, and Creative. Most marketers accept this axiom implicitly, and yet B2B companies routinely define their target audience with more attention to logos and aspiration than actual fit.

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The Point

DECEMBER 12, 2017

Results from Deloitte’s 2017 CMO Survey are out, providing insights into key trends, plans, and opinions from more than 2,800 top marketers. No surprises here, as digital marketing continues to grow at a healthy pace. The post Deloitte CMO Survey: Analytics Holding Marketers Back? Photo by Helloquence on Unsplash.

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The Point

FEBRUARY 11, 2013

Bonnie Crater is a five-time Vice President of Marketing, a former colleague of this blogger from our days at Oracle in the late 80s, and in 2000 was named one of the “Top 20 Female Executives in Silicon Valley” by San Jose Magazine. HS: How are you different from marketing automation vendors like Eloqua or Marketo at addressing this issue?

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The Point

MARCH 17, 2014

The copy is winding its way through the marketing group and is now on its fourth revision. When you’re this close to a campaign, there comes a point in the process where it’s no longer easy to evaluate the creative objectively. But it’s also times like these when your campaign is most at risk.

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The Point

NOVEMBER 10, 2014

Let me count the ways in which this campaign went off the rails: 1. For a more detailed discussion of what mistakes to avoid in B2B email marketing, download our free white paper: “ Top 10 B2B Email Marketing Mistakes.”

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The Point

FEBRUARY 18, 2020

Almost 5 years ago, our agency conducted a survey to determine whether B2B companies were getting maximum value from their investment in marketing automation. You’d assume, therefore, that marketing automation maturity – the level of sophistication at which companies employ the technology – has improved.

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The Point

AUGUST 18, 2014

Here are 10 tips for designing an effective trade show follow-up campaign. A follow-up campaign is one designed to address the other 90 percent of show leads, including show attendees who never made it to your booth, and to ensure that no other potentially qualified leads fall through the cracks. Any response (e.g.

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The Point

FEBRUARY 8, 2012

In a phone call this week I was swapping war stories with a well-known sales and marketing consultant, who, like us, works with B2B companies to improve their return on marketing automation. And that fact, I would propose, is a good sign for a maturing market. emphasis mine). No, not necessarily.

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The Point

MARCH 8, 2018

Technology marketers love analyst reports. Sure, they’re expensive to license, but they’re instant fodder for all sorts of content marketing, they bring credibility and name recognition to a campaign, and – bonus – they say nice things about your product. The post How to Market an Analyst Report appeared first on The Point.

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The Point

JULY 25, 2014

From a lead generation perspective, however, the campaign is a hot mess. I wrote in a recent post about how B2B marketers are seeing diminished returns from content marketing initiatives because they insist on pumping out content that is essentially product collateral in sheep’s clothing. This campaign is a perfect example.

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The Point

JULY 13, 2012

In my last post , I talked about creative campaign ideas for when you have no content to offer. Which leads to another question: do certain types of campaigns even need an offer in the first place? I expect any marketing email to have a tangible offer of immediate value, not just a link that the company deems I might find of interest.

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The Point

OCTOBER 8, 2020

An old boss once commented: “75% of marketing is just being in the right place at the right time.”. For more companies than not, marketing success is rarely about convincing a given individual, on a given day, to buy what it is you’re selling. Marketing Success & the Accident of Timing Click To Tweet.

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The Point

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

Try these techniques to improve the performance of your next campaign: 1. If you don’t test subject line and your campaign performs below expectations, you’ll never know what effect your subject line had on results. When marketing events, include specifics. Email results not what they should be? Not sure what to test?

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The Point

JANUARY 21, 2014

I received an email recently from Kevin Payne, Senior Director of Field Marketing at customer service software provider [24]7. Kevin writes: “Below is one of our most successful email campaigns. Click on the first thumbnail at right to see Kevin’s original campaign. What would you change?”. Plus it doesn’t mention the offer.

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The Point

JUNE 27, 2012

For today’s B2B marketer, content is the fuel that feeds the demand generation engine. But when lead generation, lead nurturing , customer marketing and social media programs all require a constant feeding of new, compelling content, what do you do when the pace of new programs outstrips your ability to generate that content?

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The Point

FEBRUARY 28, 2023

In uncertain economic times, Market Development Funds (MDF) can be a precious resource for channel partners (resellers, distributors, ISVs) looking for budget to fund sales and marketing activity. By some measures, that may add up to $15 billion of unspent marketing budget every year in the US alone.

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The Point

SEPTEMBER 11, 2012

If there’s one key element of demand generation copy that distinguishes it most from, let’s say: product collateral, or PR, or even social media, it’s this: a demand generation campaign is designed to drive action. Remember: your campaign has one aim – getting people to respond.

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The Point

MARCH 24, 2021

As someone who’s had a hand in developing hundreds, if not thousands, of B2B ads, emails, creative content and campaigns over 25+ years, I can honestly say that not once has story arc, soundtrack, or emotion played a role in determining the success of that creative. ” To which I say: rubbish. Surprise: Most B2B Advertising Isn’t Good.

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The Point

MARCH 23, 2023

One way to increase marketing ROI in a “do more with less” economy is to integrate Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) into demand gen strategy and planning. Increasingly, however, it’s being leveraged as an effective, affordable way to maximize campaign performance across a range of different demand generation channels.

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The Point

OCTOBER 7, 2010

On Focus.com , Adam asks: ““What percentage success rate do people (expect from) direct mail campaigns? We (get) 7% response rate when marketing to existing customers and 2% to new customers.”. A direct mail campaign offering say, a white paper, will generate roughly twice the response of a seminar invitation on the same topic.

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The Point

SEPTEMBER 19, 2018

A few weeks ago I gave an informational interview to a local university student looking for advice on the best way to jump start his marketing career. Here are my 5 tips for new college grads or any aspiring young marketer: 1. News flash: marketing today is technology-driven. Career Advice for a Young Marketer via @spearmktg.

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The Point

OCTOBER 15, 2019

Account-Based Marketing (ABM). Conversational Marketing. As I wrote earlier in this space, the use of intelligent chatbots in demand generation is fast becoming a major trend , as marketers discover the technology’s potential for increasing the rate at which leads engage with sales. 2) lead nurturing. Better Lead Nurturing.

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The Point

APRIL 23, 2013

Two email campaigns that arrived in my inbox recently serve as useful illustrations of how best to promote informational content. The other, from email marketing software provider ExactTarget , drives action by communicating the value of the content in concise, compelling language. First, the header is too large by half.

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The Point

FEBRUARY 27, 2018

Following on the heels of CAN-SPAM (US) and CASL (Canada), the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the latest in a series of government regulations that promises to have a major impact on the way B2B marketers conduct business. We recommend all marketers consult with legal counsel on how best to fully comply with GDPR.

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The Point

JULY 27, 2021

In a far-gone era, when demand generation was “direct marketing,” it was often said that for any campaign to be successful, the list was paramount. Fast-forward 20 years to a world of Account-Based Marketing (ABM) , and little has changed. Are there market factors that indicate the account is a high-propensity target?

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The Point

JANUARY 13, 2012

There’s a lot to like about the email campaign I received (image below) recently from Infusionsoft , a maker of sales and marketing automation software for small businesses. Make lead nurturing part of your campaign plan. Make the offer look like an offer. The free guide on offer is an ebook, a downloadable PDF.

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The Point

JUNE 14, 2011

A client confessed recently that one of the reasons his company had selected Marketo as a marketing automation provider was because he was so impressed by their marketing. Tangentially, I’d argue that more companies should select marketing agencies by the same criteria.). Is this an email design to make art directors swoon?

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The Point

APRIL 29, 2011

Can a campaign about how to improve email design be a prime example of how NOT to design an email? If it’s the campaign below, received this week from Lyris , an email marketing software company, the answer is (in the view of this blogger): yes. And if you must use “Optimizing” (a horribly over-used word), why not “Optimize”?

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The Point

OCTOBER 29, 2021

If you ask most B2B marketers how they use chat platforms like Drift , the immediate answer would most likely be: converting Web visitors. However, chat is also a powerful tool that can integrate into virtually any type of B2B demand generation program, campaign or initiative. I can help.”) Lead Nurturing. Progressive Profiling.

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