If you’re using social media for marketing and you’re not measuring your dollars-and-cents ROI , you’re doing it wrong. As my favorite rap quote says, “If it don’t make dollars, it don’t make sense.”. Marketers wouldn’t dream of spending budget on banner or PPC ads without a measured and positive return on their investment; but for some reason, many of us still play dumb when it comes to the hard data about the performance of our social media marketing investments. While advice like this is hard to disagree with, it’s not useful or concrete. Below is the formula and how it breaks down. MORE >>

Tweet For the past seven years, trade shows have surpassed websites, email marketing and paid search to secure the top spot as B2B marketers’ biggest investment, according to the MarketingSherpa 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report. But, do marketers make the most of this investment? can’t help but wonder given my own trade show attendance experience. For weeks after, I unsubscribe from newsletters and sales pitches from companies I barely recognize. Here’s what I suspect happens: They sponsor the event and set up a booth. They dump this list into their database. Trade Show ? Instant Engagement. MORE >>

Recently I had written a post about the five marketing tools I am most thankful for and I included Hootsuite as one of my five. Since, I have received multiple questions asking how I use Hootsuite and what some of my best practices are, I figured it might be easiest to respond with a quick blog post. am logged into our Hootsuite Pro account every day, all day long, and I also utilize the application for my Droid smartphone. So how would I recommend using Hootsuite and what are some of the key features to use? There is no better way to manage your posts then using the bulk scheduler. MORE >>

by Sylvia Jensen | Tweet this Most CMOs believe ROI should be the primary measurement of marketing effectiveness. This isn’t me saying that. That’s according to an IBM survey revealing  63% of  CMOs surveyed think ROI will be the main measurement by 2015 and that 56% feel ill prepared to manage ROI. Other surveys have found the same thing. Thanks to advancements in analytics and marketing automation have put measuring marketing ROI possible. The problem is one of definition and communication. What What exactly constitutes a good ROI result? The jury’s still out. MORE >>

Sales Mgmt.:  4 Steps on how not to get fired. On my flight to Seattle I was pondering what this week’s blog might contain; it occurred to me that in reflecting on the past year and looking forward towards 2013 a quick summary of a few basic actions sales leadership must take to succeed would be of value. Step One: Build an active recruiting plan.  Most sales managers get fired for not hitting the desired sales goals, the issue is normally because they have a lack of salespeople selling their products/services!  Recruiting is sales leadership’s marketing campaign for sales leads. MORE >>