What is branding and why does it matter? Branding is a word that is used a great deal these days. But what does it actually mean? The Design Council defines a brand as: “a set of associations that a person (or group of people) makes with a company, product, service, individual or organisation. These associations may be intentional – that is, they may be actively promoted via marketing and corporate identity, for example – or they may be outside the company’s control.” ” (Source: The Power of Branding: a practical guide. The Design Council). Read more: Pin It. MORE >>

© All Rights Reserved Peter Schofield. This is part 2 of a series on the challenge of targeting SMB markets and how the use of buyer modeling and buyer-based marketing help organizations to grow their SMB customer base. . In the first article of this series, we visited two new realities.  One, that many Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 organizations are turning a focused eye towards growing their SMB customer and revenue base.  The second reality is that they are finding a very different buyer this time around than in the past.  That is of how to get to know the new SMB buyer.  Avoid Big Data Trap. MORE >>

The latest report shows Pinterest now drives more traffic than Twitter. You may want to know not just how much traffic Pinterest is driving but also what users are pinning your content and driving the most traffic. Fortunately for marketers, Pinterest is one of the easiest platforms to track. Recently I published tricks I have learned to discover who is sharing your content on Twitter and LinkedIn and how much traffic each is driving. Here is how to get the same information about Pinterest, even if you aren’t using Pinterest. For example, you can see all pins from IBM.com at [link]. MORE >>

I’ve always felt my groaning inbox bore testament to the popularity of email marketing.  Now my suspicions are confirmed. . The latest report in B2B Marketing’s Benchmark series reveals that a whopping nine in ten (88%) B2B marketers make use of the technique.  Remarkably, amongst those doing so almost one half (44%) broadcast emails once a week or more often. Click for enlarged infographic. This popularity means that message overload is a real problem.  A business buyer often receives several hundred marketing emails a month.  Inevitably these merge into one indistinct mass. . MORE >>

The last 12-18 months have proved to be a rough time for the proverbial “sales funnel”.  At the 2011, DemandCon conference, Forrester analyst Jeff Ernst declared in his keynote that “the funnel is dead.” Needless to say this was fuel for quite a bit of conversation in the days that followed.  And since then many have jumped on the “death to the funnel” bandwagon.  The last salvo came from Tony Zambito , Founder and Principal of Buyerology, in his article Slow Death of the Funnel: Why Buyer Choice Matters to Revenue. . The point here is well taken. Lead Management Process Lead Planning MORE >>