Contrary to my initial impression that “customer centricity” was the major topic at the National Center for Database Marketing conference this week, a close look at the program shows just four of the 45 sessions had this as their focus. This includes three related to multi-variate testing (e.g. This conflicts with another of my informal impressions, that the show had shifted from “how to build a system” to “what to do with the system you’ve built”. MORE

Segmentation has been a staple of business marketing and sales for several decades. The concept of breaking down a potential market or industry into smaller target segments is a standard technique taught in business schools and used by many organizations. Beginning in the 1980’s and 1990’s, we began to see a shift to individualism. We saw the influence of the Meyers-Briggs Testing philosophy extended into the business world. by Evan Shuster. MORE

by Anna Glushkovsky | Tweet this The most important question of any marketing database strategy is “What information is out there that I can access?”. The drive behind many demand generation campaigns is to collect valuable data on prospects, stuff like name, email, phone number, company and maybe title. But what is that worth to your business? So how do you optimize your marketing database in a way that will improve future campaigns? MORE

A form of direct marketing , database marketing uses business and consumer databases to generate targeted recipient lists. Through various enterprise data sources and marketing technology tools, this practice leverages consumer and business user data to deliver relevant, effective, and personalized messages to both existing and potential customers/clients. This is then used to select the recipient list for communications. MORE

by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this Marketers never stop worrying about growing the size of their contact database. A marketer can produce fantastic pieces of content and run amazing events to grow their database, and yet completely miss an obvious avenue to grow their reach. Sales Enablement tools (as we like to call them at Eloqua) are an effective and convenient way to provide your Sales Team with marketing collateral that they can send to prospects. MORE

Those working in B2B marketing have their own special blend of anxieties and fears. Things like typos in big campaigns, mis-fired tweets and screwed up presentations are enough to scare even the most competent marketer. Today, we spotlight 10 marketing nightmares – and explain how you can avoid them. Showing Up to a Webinar with the Wrong Deck. You’ve promoted the webinar to thousands in your database, through social media, basically anyone who will listen. MORE

The best B2B marketers are always looking to improve their craft and hone their skills, which is why the following fifteen B2B marketing books are required reading for any marketer looking to create and foster lasting inter-business relationships. As time passes, new research emerges, new marketing techniques are created and applied, and new tools appear in the industry, further transforming the game. UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. MORE

We, as outbound marketers, owe it to our audiences to make sure that the information we’re offering is of the highest relevance and value. As such, you need to face the tough question: Is your email marketing messaging truly resonating with your audiences? (In In other words, if you were to approach the recipient in a crowd and started to deliver your pitch, would they call security? Enough of the marketing tutorial. MORE

by Jennifer Horton | Tweet this Measurement is often a main reason that many clients cite for investing in marketing automation. This year, in the age of Revenue Performance Management , we have several clients that are beginning to dedicate resources to make reporting and benchmarking a top priority for marketing and sales operations teams. First, we surveyed the community to get the pulse on what reports they reviewed regularly on a monthly basis. MORE

by Anna Glushkovsky | Tweet this We’ve all done it before…fill in our names as “Anna Banana” with a title of “Miss Universe” to get to a free white paper, webinar or just to see what the next screen is! And, if you have a job like mine, you probably have tools and techniques to identify and, where possible, clean these entries so that your database quality and marketing ability is improved. Eloqua provides a set of tools to deal with clean data. MORE

Business-to-business marketers are plagued by data problems. Business data is complex and fast-changing. Our legacy databases are not as robust as we need. To shed some light on B2B data problems, Bernice Grossman and I compiled a working list of problems and solutions. Data entered by our sales people ends up as mush in our database. Give them objective rules to follow. The most recent data is the one you should default to. MORE

For marketers this kind of visual organization is invaluable for one simple reason: we’ve got a lot on our minds. With that in mind, we wanted to present 11 infographics marketers will probably want to download, print out and keep near their desks. The State of Email Marketing. In an age where social media is all the rage, it can be easy to forget just how effective email marketing is. Data is not the sexiest topic for marketers. MORE

Business-to-business data continues to challenge marketers, who need to identify and communicate with customers and prospects, but who run into thorny issues every day. Problems range from duplicates, to key-entry errors, to missing data elements, and beyond. Recently, Bernice Grossman and I worked with a group of savvy B2B marketers at a DMA conference to compile a list of difficult data problems. MORE

No question it’s a valuable part of your marketing, but sometimes it can feel like a big mess. But you don’t need to throw your hands in air. In fact, it could be just what the doctor ordered to get your campaign results backs on track. Develop, apply and share naming conventions with everyone who adds data to your CRM, marketing automation system, spreadsheets and any other systems you use. Once you’ve decided what the names are, you have to apply them. MORE

Outbound Marketing – Brief Overview and Facets Around it. Ever been curious as to what exactly is “outbound marketing?” It is a marketing & sales procedure adopted by many companies to share information regarding their products & services. Research & investigations have revealed that firms invest around ninety percent of their incomes on different forms of outbound marketing. The Relevance of Outbound Marketing. Written By. MORE

by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this It’s impossible to escape the seismic shifts that have rocked the B2B marketing world in recent years. The marketers joining the SiriusDecisions Summit today want more than tools. They want to discuss the emerging trends and strategies that can drive demand. Last year, we spoke to Jonathan Block , Sirius’s VP and Practice Director, about how marketing operations had arrived as a lasting discipline within growing organizations. MORE