Progressive profiling can be used to ask for a minimal amount of data at each interaction, never ask the same question twice, but continually add to a modular profile. Data is key to all your marketing efforts. Whether it is segmentation, personalization, lead scoring, lead routing, or marketing analysis, if you don’t have clean and consistent data, your efforts will be built on the shakiest of foundations. However, when thinking about your marketing automation efforts, data management can often be an afterthought. Current Database First, you need to understand your current database. MORE >>

link] Ardath Albee (Marketing Interactions) makes the case that lead nurturing is very different than stringing together existing marketing campaigns – it needs to lead buyers on a well thought out journey, rather than just communicating frequent messages. It’s been more than a week since I wrote my last weekly wrap-up, and that is more a reflection on me than on the writing this week. There are again a lot of great posts out there this week, and I enjoyed reading many more than I was able to highlight here. Laura’s insights and depth really show through well. link]. MORE >>

Each conversation or engagement that happens in the public domain, whether a discussion on LinkedIn or an interaction on Twitter creates an opportunity for another viewer to see the discussion and engage with the content being talked about. We spoke recently about various ways of looking at marketing benchmarks and how to better dashboard and analyze the entire revenue performance management process. This thinking needs to be applied to all areas of the revenue engine, and each has its own unique challenges. This view is instructive in two ways. MORE >>

As a marketer or salesperson interacting with a prospective buying audience, how that audience is defined changes as a more direct connection is made with them. At the earliest stages of interaction with buyers, as they are just entering into the awareness and education stage, the metrics that are trackable are around interactions and views. At this point, multiple interactions with one person can be tied together and that individuals actions can begin to qualify them as potentially being a marketing qualified lead. An individual? company? dollar? MORE >>

In the direct world, this can be measured by the rates of content interaction vs emotional unsubscribes while in the advertising world, it is measured by clickthrough rates on ads. As marketers, we often think of there being a fundamental difference between the two ends of the media spectrum; on one end, direct, where an individual’s contact information is known and a message can be delivered directly, and on the other end mass media, where a broad audience is targeted based on demographics or audience characteristics. No longer are these purely mass audiences. MORE >>