You can spend all day every day and still barely scratch the surface of all the dialogue, debate, and events exploring the "real" meaning of sales enablement, who is doing it well, what tools are most useful, and how social media will revolutionize the whole process. Sales Enablement is a huge topic in B2B these days. Forrester's upcoming forum is a great example.). The activity makes sense. We all know the B2B sales cycle keeps getting longer, more and more people are involved in big purchase decisions, and lead nurturing is incredibly important. And this isn't just talk. MORE >>

The company defined a new way of thinking about the role of technology in a whole host of social and economic issues. The fast-growing provider of "inbound marketing" tools promotes the concept relentlessly with a daily dose of useful content for marketers on how to build awareness and generate leads through search engine marketing and social media. For small business marketers and consultants focused on social media and search, HubSpot's master narrative about the why and how of inbound marketing is beginning to frame the whole conversation. Delivered." MORE >>

The best programs take a comprehensive approach with strong emphasis on three types of program activities: Live references, including customer-to-customer discussions, event presentations, media interviews, analyst briefings, and advisory group meetings. Success story content, including not only case studies, videos, and profiles but, increasingly, social media content, in-depth ROI presentations, internal "how we got the win" selling stories, and integration into thought leadership publications. Great products may sell themselves based on features or price. MORE >>

Taking off from the familiar point that the tech industry was always led by vendor-based innovation, Moschella outlined the fundamental shift underway in the early 2000s toward customer-driven innovation in industries ranging from media and financial services to health care and education. More often, however, I see situations where the rhetoric far outpaces the reality: A large IT services firm aggressively (and expensively) using Twitter and other social media primarily as just another channel to pump out corporate-designed messages and content. MORE >>

Consistently creating engaging content is one of those programmatic challenges that strikes fear in the hearts of many B2B marketers looking to take more advantage of social media. It shows up regularly in surveys on the obstacles to social media success; it came up repeatedly in the group of manufacturing and distribution company marketers I had the privilege of working with last week in ISBM's workshop on B2B social media. Indeed, there are four levels of content sharing that B2B marketers should include in their social media mix. MORE >>