At $500 per month with no annual contract, it’s priced to make it easy to get started with marketing automation. While some other system provide this, many marketing automation vendors rely on third-party products instead. sequential campaign flows with conditional actions in each step and “early exit” conditions that can remove leads from the flow at any step. Most marketing automation systems offer conditional actions, which let the system send different messages to different lead segments. So let me try again. But an early exit rule is harder to find. MORE >>

Vendors such as Genius, Eloqua, Marketo, and Pardot are reaping the benefits and growing fast. Increasingly, the first two-thirds of that cycle is spent researching the market and vendors, without regular contact with a sales rep. B2B marketers have traditionally gotten off easy in terms of strict accountability, but are often the first budget to get cut and were sometimes looked down upon by more accountable departments. Under adverse economic conditions, buyers are less inclined to purchase – plain and simple. Buyers are increasingly wary of the phone. Tweet This! MORE >>

Monday, November 29, 2010 Five Reasons You May Not Be Spending Enough on Content Marketing Interactive Smart Content™ and Dynamic Sales Tools Required to Meet Changing Buyer Needs Marketing of B2B solutions has clearly become more difficult over the past several years, evident in research from IDC indicating that: 62% of B2B vendors now need more leads in order to generate the same amount of sales; 72% indicate an increase in buying cycle time over the past 6 month, while the buying cycle timeframe has increased over 10% in the past 12 months. Death of a Salesman? MORE >>

With more information available, and growing skepticism in vendors, buyers have taken control of the purchasing cycle. They expect vendors to provide them the content they need throughout the sales cycle. Increasingly, the first two-thirds of that cycle is spent researching the market and vendors, without regular contact with a sales rep. B2B marketers have traditionally gotten off easy in terms of strict accountability, but were often the first budget to get cut and were sometimes looked down upon by more accountable departments. What does that mean? MORE >>

This condition, termed Frugalnomics, means that buyers are overloaded and forced to do-more-with-less, uncertain about their budgets, and required to financially justify new investments. At the same time, vendors are inundating buyers with irrelevant campaigns, with the average buyer receiving upwards of 15 sales calls per day and 200 marketing related emails from solution providers each week. Advice: Discounts can be used to win business, and low-price providers will have an inherent advantage. Formal business cases are now a requirement for over 90% of purchases. MORE >>