But B2B marketing automation products are largely limited to data they generate internally or import from CRM. Before I change topics, other key points about Empathy Logic are: product is about one year old; uses Pentaho open source software for data integration and business intelligence; runs on the Amazon EC2 cloud infrastructure; and charges $10,000 to $20,000 per month for its services.) B2B marketing automation vendors generally position their systems as a replacement for separate applications including email, forms creation, Web analytics, content management, and reporting. MORE >>

Try These Traditional Tactics Now Share In a recent article from eMarketer, “ Is Social a Source for B2B Leads? ”, a survey from Leadforce1 is highlighted showing that social media is not producing the kind of engagement that drives leads. Many B2B marketers make the mistake of trying to push product details on prospects too early in the process. Nurture your email list with an invitation to visit a resource center that provides thought leadership from well-known experts, webcast and podcast replays, short videos and product demos, customer testimonials and case studies. MORE >>

We assume that the portal will require half of one full-time equivalent (FTE) employee to administer, that the fully loaded cost of that employee is $70,000 and that the portal will enable the company to eliminate one support position at a fully loaded cost of $70,000. At the same time, the value generated by the community will enable us to cut an additional one-half customer support position each year. The portal looks like a good investment, yielding a positive first-year ROI and blowout value in the third year. Customer loyalty. They include Indium Corp., 100,000. MORE >>

According to research from Junta42 and MarketingProfs , in surveys of over 1,100 North American B2B marketers, a significant portion (26%) of total marketing budget is spent on content-marketing initiatives, with 51% of B2B marketers planning to further increase their spend on content marketing over the next 12 months. However, the survey found that many content marketers have doubts about whether content marketing actually delivers measurable ROI, especially newer tactics such as social media, blogs and online videos. Increased Customer Retention / Loyalty. Direct Sales. MORE >>

“Businesses are interacting with consumers to socialize rather than learn about customer expectations to in turn, deliver tangible value, improve product experiences, and invest in long-term relationships,” writes Brian Solis, who then details an experiment by Andrew Blakeley in which he spent a week as a “social consumer.” You want loyalty? It would be like trying to unpull a trigger…ROI is most importantly the cultivation of relationships and capturing the positive word of mouth recommendations from your community. by MarketingProfs. MORE >>