Although the level of marketing spend doesn’t usually correlate to marketing effectiveness, it is useful to know how others in your industry or other companies of similar size are spending their money on marketing. Forrester Research has recently released a study, “ Benchmark Your Interactive Marketing Maturity “, that aims to give you some metrics to figure out whether you are putting your money on the right marketing tactics. So if the survey finding that the median of annual interactive marketing budgets is $7.19 Five Benchmarks. MORE >>

Forrester’s latest research “ B2B Sales and Marketing Alignment Starts with the Customer ” confirms the dysfunctional and damaging gap that still exists between sales and marketing in the vast majority of B2B organisations. Fewer than 1 in 10 of the B2B organisations surveyed claimed to have tight alignment between their sales and marketing functions – and nearly 7 out of 10 evaluated their performance as average or worse. Find New Customers is one of few  lead generation companies in New York. Everyone talks about it. by Bob Apollo of Inflexion-Point. MORE >>

B2B Demand Generation | Companies are struggling with demand generation today. “I find it sad how badly most companies are doing in B2B demand generation today. Jeff Ernst, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research. B2B marketers are doing a poor job with demand- and lead-generation programs, according to a new study from Forrester Research. The report, “The State of B2B Demand Generation: Disjointed,” was based on an online survey of 266 marketing and sales executives conducted in May 2011. Jeff Ogden, President, Find New Customers. MORE >>

After interviewing nearly 40 experts and working with Charlene Li and a bit of help from myself, she’s found six distinct use cases (see compass below) on how companies are measuring using these new toolsets. We know that measurement is the the top goal inside of companies , and while I’ve published this data before, it’s important to recast it to show the important of measurement in an emerging technology set. link] Research Report: A Framework for Social Analytics | Thought Experiments [.] Why are social analytics so important? Wowza! Wowza! Wowza! MORE >>

The original purpose of white papers as a B2B marketing tactic was to produce objective information, packaged as quasi-academic research, that might validate a company’s or product’s value proposition. Over time, however, the market education function was largely assumed by research firms such as Gartner and Forrester, whose opinions carry greater credibility than self-publishers of white papers. And there are still many companies that produce legitimate white papers containing helpful, objective information. Research Report? Executive Review? MORE >>