A March 2011 survey conducted by Patricia Seybold Group  and Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA) found a correlation between leadership in data-driven marketing and increased sales productivity as well as improved market share over a two year period.  Digging deeper into technology factors affecting their success, we found that more than half the data savvy marketing organizations have had a technology strategy and roadmap in place for more than a year, compared with only 12% of the other marketing organizations in the survey. MORE >>

It took me some time to get my arms around the Adobe Online Marketing Suite. The Suite has an impressive range of capabilities; however, the products within the suite don’t match neatly to discrete marketing functions. It also underscores one of the challenges Adobe faces: moving from a web analyst’s or graphic designer’s favorite tool to a marketer’s business solution. As I review the list of essentials in the marketing technology ecosystem , Adobe stands up admirably. For more insight into Adobe’s Online Marketing Suite, read my report. MORE >>

So you’re in the market for a marketing automation platform.  You’ve gone through the Step-by-Step Guide to Selecting a Marketing Automation System by David Raab.  When you succeed with marketing automation, you win big, but when you fail  to achieve the revenue increases, cost reductions, and increases in accountability and agility (as a third of implementations do), you are probably only using a small fraction of the platform functionality.  These are NOT practices that marketers can come up with in a flash AFTER selecting a platform.  MORE >>

Filed under: Content curation , Content marketing. Content curation Content marketingSomeone raised the question on Quora a month ago:  Would most users rather have content delivered to them based on interests or by their social connections?  Then Arnold Waldstein started a Conversational Rant a few days ago on his blog, pointing out that he would like to “parse my world by conversations, by topic, by trusted connections daily.” ” Then Romain Goday of Darwin Ecosystem  laid out  five different approaches to content curation : Expert approach: curators. MORE >>

Filed under: Content marketing , Thought leadership. Content marketing Thought leadershipPawan Deshpande’s post on Crafting the Perfect Content Curation Strategy  raised the important issue of how one chooses the right topic for a content curation initiative. The topic choice drives actions and investments. Moreover, Moreover, the topic lays the foundation for engagement and becomes the focus for reputation building. These three are definitely important. But some refinements are in order. close second is relevance to a point of view held by your company. Don’t MORE >>