Expert insights. Personalized for you.
InformationWeek's September 11 issue published its list of Top 250 Innovators, with detailed profiles of the top five. What first struck me was that four of the top five firms focused on improving customer experiences: whether by better marketing (Principal Financial Group), mass customization (Automatic Data Processing), or improved customer-facing operational processes (American Power Conversion and Global Crossing). MORE
Acquisitions form the never-ending background noise of the technology industry. Some illustrate such obvious trends they are barely worth noting, while others hint at something important. This week brought one of each. On September 11, Alterian (www.alterian.com) announced its purchase of Nvigorate (www.nvigorate.com), one of the better established developers of marketing resource management systems. MORE
One of the topics that has always fascinated me is how innovations spread through an industry. At the risk of admitting an embarrassing truth, most of the concepts that customer management thought leaders discuss have been around for a long time. I don’t mean the ancient “corner shop keeper” analogy, but the specific vision of linking customer touch points to a central management system that can optimize each interaction. MORE
I’ve been researching software to model the flow of customers through an organization. The thought is to take literally the mantra that “the value of a business is the value of its customer relationships” by modeling the relationships individually and viewing an aggregate result. This is all central to the Client X Client business concept. MORE
i wanted to share the final installment from the podcast series i did with 800-ceo-read. in this podcast, todd interviewed me and jill konrath on the critical interface between marketing and sales. here's what todd says about it MORE
A Columbia University study published in Science (2/10/06 issue) sheds light on the role that social influence can play in driving consumer demand. Researchers recruited more than 14000 people in a study to measure the impact of social MORE
the biggest challenge most sales pros with a complex sale face is getting access to executives, especially those in big companies. to be successful, sales and marketing efforts must be better aligned. jill konrath just wrote an e-book MORE
i had a great time chatting with todd at 800-ceo-read on lead generation. this is the first of three podcasts 800-ceo-read is doing on b2b sales and marketing. here's what todd says about it: "in this podcast, i talk with brian carroll MORE
do you use the telephone as part of your multi-modal lead generation strategy? a recent btob magazine article by carol krol, "copy this: telemarketing big with xerox" shows that, although the phone may not be as buzz worthy as other MORE
It's pretty crazy how popular internet advertising is and how much it continues to grow. According to a recent study internet ad revenue is up 37% over the first half of last year. See the full article at BtoBOnline Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers report that Search continues to lead that growth, accounting for 40% of total online advertising revenue in the first half. MORE
When you're designing a website, blog or email template do you ever think about how your users will actually see it? This may seem like a stupid question but it's extremely important to ensure that the people viewing your website or email see what you intended them to see. When I wrote a post on How to convert blog traffic into loyal readers I mentioned that it's important to make it easy for your readers to subscribe to your blog. MORE
Here's an award winning integrated campaign by Honda to promote it's sporty Element. It combined, TV spots, search marketing and even YouTube videos !! The agency that designed the campaign ended up winning an award which isn't too surprising. Why is this campaign so good? It's a great product. Start off with a great product and you're off to a good start It's fun. It's game that allows you to test drive the car above ground and below. This represents the car as it seems like a fun car. MORE
If you market to marketers and want to get the word out about your products or services -- or in your quest for marketing knowledge you just want to assure that you aren't overlooking important but obscure sources of information -- check out the new directory of Advertising and Marketing Trade Publications on WebMarketCentral. The genesis for this page was some client research on publications that target direct and catalog marketers. MORE
SEPTEMBER 17, 2006
Just like YouTube , there's a new picture slide show tool out there that B2C marketers should get a handle on. It's called Slide. Here's a sample : If you own a small business, you can also use this to show off your products in Ebay, Craigslist and other formats. Want to create your own Slide, start here. Have fun! Chad H. youtube MORE
Yesterday’s The New York Times ( www.nytimes.com ) carried an article on identity theft, which basically suggested the problem is not as important as it seems (“Surging Losses, but Few Victims”, Circuits, September 27, 2006). Since I had just written on the topic in this blog (September 22, 2006), I read it closely. MORE
Unica ( www.unica.com ) released the latest version of their Affinium marketing suite earlier this month. One set of enhancements related to response attribution, which the new release makes both more flexible and easier to use. Since this is an area of particular interest for me, I asked Unica for a briefing. Over all, the new features are very good, but I’ll leave it to Unica’s marketing materials to describe them at length. MORE
Amount of money I've made on Adsense in four months: $2.29 Number of inbound links that I have to my blog in four months: 229 The vast amount of knowledge that I've gained regarding blogging, e-marketing, search marketing (SEO), online advertising, and email marketing by blogging? PRICELESS! Here's a funny one I found on Youtube: Chad H. PS - I forgot to mention how much fun I'm having! MORE
The CMO Council ( www.cmocouncil.org ) just released initial results from a major study, “Secure the Trust of Your Brand”, on how information security impacts customer attitudes. The initial report is a survey of consumer attitudes. Among the eye-opening factoids: - the Federal Trade Commission reports that 10 million Americans each year become victims of identity theft, at an average cost per victim of $5,885 and 30 hours of time. MORE
My last two posts have dealt with activities that affect customers but are invisible to them: back-office analytics and information security. How do you fit these into a Customer Experience framework? Actually there are several means of connection. The most obvious is to expose the activities to customers directly, by featuring them in advertising or building them into customer-facing activities. MORE
SEPTEMBER 26, 2006
Who could resist a paper entitled “100+ Questions CRM consultants get paid to ask”? Certainly not a sometime CRM consultant like myself. As I downloaded the paper from hosted CRM vendor Entellium ( www.entellium.com ), hope and fear wrestled inside me: Would I learn something new? Are they giving away all my trade secrets? Would this be heaven or would it be hell? Whatever happened to the Eagles anyway? Didn't I see they were on tour recently? The Rolling Stones are touring again. MORE
Thinking about a new marketing campaign to promote a new product? Why not consider doing a video that could be used as a TV ad, website video, posted on YouTube , added to your business blog, linked to from emails and advertised in magazines and print material. Sounds difficult eh? Maybe, but if you're going to spend the money on that 30 second TV spot, mind as well get the most out of it by fully integrating the concept across all of your marketing channels. MORE
A friend recently described her customer experience with a months-late furniture order. The store was sincerely apologetic, but explained that manufacturers accept an order only to find, when they go to build it weeks later, that the fabric is no longer available. The mills themselves don’t give the manufacturers current information, so there is little the manufacturer can do. The store itself is even more helpless but is left to face the customer’s wrath. MORE
OK, so I spent several fun-filled hours yesterday working through a tutorial for an agent-based modeling system. The particular product I chose, SeSAm ( www.simsesam.de ), was developed as a teaching aid. It is free, powerful and easy to learn. I didn’t finish the tutorial* but saw enough to confirm that I could build models with agents that stored their own history and drew on that history to determine future behavior. MORE
Today’s New York Times carried an article on the use of science by marketers, although this is not exactly news. Enlisting Science’s Lessons to Entice More Shoppers to Spend More”, Science Times, September 19, 2006.) The specific examples it will be familiar to any marketing professional: carefully tracking shoppers’ paths through a store; analyzing physiological reactions to advertisements; and using multivariate test designs to assess ad components. MORE
“Customer Experience Management” meets the two key requirements for a successful buzzword: it’s impressive (10 syllables!) and no one quite knows what it means. (My My own definition, “understand and improve how you treat your customers,” fails on both counts.) Given these virtues, it’s not surprising that many firms have adopted Customer Experience Management as part of their marketing message. Since my own firm is among these, I take particular interest in watching how others use the term. MORE
SEPTEMBER 21, 2006
When I saw that Computerworld ( www.computerworld.com ) had a special report on successful business intelligence projects (“BI Home Runs”, Computerworld, September 18, 2006), I confidently expected something similar to the InformationWeek article described in my September 13 post: that is, a major focus on improving customer treatments. MORE
B2B Lead Generation
SEPTEMBER 30, 2006
i wanted to share the final installment from the podcast series i did with 800-ceo-read. in this podcast, todd interviewed me and jill konrath on the critical interface between marketing and sales. here's what todd says about it
Customer Experience Matrix
SEPTEMBER 29, 2006
Unica ( www.unica.com ) released the latest version of their Affinium marketing suite earlier this month. One set of enhancements related to response attribution, which the new release makes both more flexible and easier to use. Since this is an area of particular interest for me, I asked Unica for a briefing. Over all, the new features are very good, but I’ll leave it to Unica’s marketing materials to describe them at length.
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Anything Goes Marketing
SEPTEMBER 7, 2006
Thinking about a new marketing campaign to promote a new product? Why not consider doing a video that could be used as a TV ad, website video, posted on YouTube , added to your business blog, linked to from emails and advertised in magazines and print material. Sounds difficult eh? Maybe, but if you're going to spend the money on that 30 second TV spot, mind as well get the most out of it by fully integrating the concept across all of your marketing channels.
Buzz Marketing for Technology
SEPTEMBER 25, 2006
A Columbia University study published in Science (2/10/06 issue) sheds light on the role that social influence can play in driving consumer demand. Researchers recruited more than 14000 people in a study to measure the impact of social
Speaker: Matthew Hawk, President of B2bTrainers
The term “sales enablement” applies to a dizzying array of best practices and technologies. In addition, there is tremendous competitive pressure not to fall behind. No matter where you are in your current sales enablement strategy, one thing is key: success ultimately rides on the habits of your sales managers & marketers. In this webinar, Matthew Hawk will lay out an in-depth schematic for your next-level sales coaching, demonstrate the key activities that comprise success, and walk you through several examples of sales coaching cadences that apply to all salesforce sizes.
WebMarketCentral
SEPTEMBER 27, 2006
If you market to marketers and want to get the word out about your products or services -- or in your quest for marketing knowledge you just want to assure that you aren't overlooking important but obscure sources of information -- check out the new directory of Advertising and Marketing Trade Publications on WebMarketCentral. The genesis for this page was some client research on publications that target direct and catalog marketers.
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B2B Marketing Zone brings together the best content for marketers in the B2B industry from the widest variety of thought leaders.
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B2B Lead Generation
SEPTEMBER 5, 2006
i had a great time chatting with todd at 800-ceo-read on lead generation. this is the first of three podcasts 800-ceo-read is doing on b2b sales and marketing. here's what todd says about it: "in this podcast, i talk with brian carroll
B2B Lead Generation
SEPTEMBER 1, 2006
the biggest challenge most sales pros with a complex sale face is getting access to executives, especially those in big companies. to be successful, sales and marketing efforts must be better aligned. jill konrath just wrote an e-book
Customer Experience Matrix
SEPTEMBER 28, 2006
Yesterday’s The New York Times ( www.nytimes.com ) carried an article on identity theft, which basically suggested the problem is not as important as it seems (“Surging Losses, but Few Victims”, Circuits, September 27, 2006). Since I had just written on the topic in this blog (September 22, 2006), I read it closely.
Customer Experience Matrix
SEPTEMBER 27, 2006
A friend recently described her customer experience with a months-late furniture order. The store was sincerely apologetic, but explained that manufacturers accept an order only to find, when they go to build it weeks later, that the fabric is no longer available. The mills themselves don’t give the manufacturers current information, so there is little the manufacturer can do. The store itself is even more helpless but is left to face the customer’s wrath.
Advertiser: ZoomInfo
Every sales forecasting model has a different strength and predictability method. It’s recommended to test out which one is best for your team. This way, you’ll be able to further enhance – and optimize – your newly-developed pipeline. Your future sales forecast? Sunny skies (and success) are just ahead!
Customer Experience Matrix
SEPTEMBER 26, 2006
Who could resist a paper entitled “100+ Questions CRM consultants get paid to ask”? Certainly not a sometime CRM consultant like myself. As I downloaded the paper from hosted CRM vendor Entellium ( www.entellium.com ), hope and fear wrestled inside me: Would I learn something new? Are they giving away all my trade secrets? Would this be heaven or would it be hell? Whatever happened to the Eagles anyway? Didn't I see they were on tour recently? The Rolling Stones are touring again.
Customer Experience Matrix
SEPTEMBER 25, 2006
My last two posts have dealt with activities that affect customers but are invisible to them: back-office analytics and information security. How do you fit these into a Customer Experience framework? Actually there are several means of connection. The most obvious is to expose the activities to customers directly, by featuring them in advertising or building them into customer-facing activities.
Customer Experience Matrix
SEPTEMBER 22, 2006
The CMO Council ( www.cmocouncil.org ) just released initial results from a major study, “Secure the Trust of Your Brand”, on how information security impacts customer attitudes. The initial report is a survey of consumer attitudes. Among the eye-opening factoids: - the Federal Trade Commission reports that 10 million Americans each year become victims of identity theft, at an average cost per victim of $5,885 and 30 hours of time.
Customer Experience Matrix
SEPTEMBER 21, 2006
When I saw that Computerworld ( www.computerworld.com ) had a special report on successful business intelligence projects (“BI Home Runs”, Computerworld, September 18, 2006), I confidently expected something similar to the InformationWeek article described in my September 13 post: that is, a major focus on improving customer treatments.
Speaker: Christopher Ryan, Founder and CEO of Fusion Marketing Partners
Sales & Marketing departments that work together guarantee higher acquisition, better nurturing, and more effective sales. Join Christopher Ryan for this insightful webinar, presenting the wide funnel lead nurturing model. Don't miss out on this opportunity to get your teams working together and your revenue performance optimized.
Customer Experience Matrix
SEPTEMBER 20, 2006
“Customer Experience Management” meets the two key requirements for a successful buzzword: it’s impressive (10 syllables!) and no one quite knows what it means. (My My own definition, “understand and improve how you treat your customers,” fails on both counts.) Given these virtues, it’s not surprising that many firms have adopted Customer Experience Management as part of their marketing message. Since my own firm is among these, I take particular interest in watching how others use the term.
Customer Experience Matrix
SEPTEMBER 19, 2006
Today’s New York Times carried an article on the use of science by marketers, although this is not exactly news. Enlisting Science’s Lessons to Entice More Shoppers to Spend More”, Science Times, September 19, 2006.) The specific examples it will be familiar to any marketing professional: carefully tracking shoppers’ paths through a store; analyzing physiological reactions to advertisements; and using multivariate test designs to assess ad components.
Customer Experience Matrix
SEPTEMBER 18, 2006
OK, so I spent several fun-filled hours yesterday working through a tutorial for an agent-based modeling system. The particular product I chose, SeSAm ( www.simsesam.de ), was developed as a teaching aid. It is free, powerful and easy to learn. I didn’t finish the tutorial* but saw enough to confirm that I could build models with agents that stored their own history and drew on that history to determine future behavior.
Customer Experience Matrix
SEPTEMBER 17, 2006
I’ve been researching software to model the flow of customers through an organization. The thought is to take literally the mantra that “the value of a business is the value of its customer relationships” by modeling the relationships individually and viewing an aggregate result. This is all central to the Client X Client business concept.
Speaker: Jay McBain, Principal Analyst – Channels, Partnerships & Ecosystems
We are in the middle of a major transformation of how companies go to market – in fact, 76% of global CEOs feel that their current business models will be unrecognizable in the next 3 years. Join Jay McBain from Forrester as he unpacks these future trends.
Customer Experience Matrix
SEPTEMBER 15, 2006
One of the topics that has always fascinated me is how innovations spread through an industry. At the risk of admitting an embarrassing truth, most of the concepts that customer management thought leaders discuss have been around for a long time. I don’t mean the ancient “corner shop keeper” analogy, but the specific vision of linking customer touch points to a central management system that can optimize each interaction.
Customer Experience Matrix
SEPTEMBER 14, 2006
Acquisitions form the never-ending background noise of the technology industry. Some illustrate such obvious trends they are barely worth noting, while others hint at something important. This week brought one of each. On September 11, Alterian (www.alterian.com) announced its purchase of Nvigorate (www.nvigorate.com), one of the better established developers of marketing resource management systems.
Customer Experience Matrix
SEPTEMBER 13, 2006
InformationWeek's September 11 issue published its list of Top 250 Innovators, with detailed profiles of the top five. What first struck me was that four of the top five firms focused on improving customer experiences: whether by better marketing (Principal Financial Group), mass customization (Automatic Data Processing), or improved customer-facing operational processes (American Power Conversion and Global Crossing).
Anything Goes Marketing
SEPTEMBER 30, 2006
Here's an award winning integrated campaign by Honda to promote it's sporty Element. It combined, TV spots, search marketing and even YouTube videos !! The agency that designed the campaign ended up winning an award which isn't too surprising. Why is this campaign so good? It's a great product. Start off with a great product and you're off to a good start It's fun. It's game that allows you to test drive the car above ground and below. This represents the car as it seems like a fun car.
Advertiser: ZoomInfo
Sales enablement is the strategic process of providing sales teams with the content, guidance, and mentorship needed to engage targeted buyers. It’s all about equipping sales professionals with the tools they need to put their best-selling foot forward. And if sales teams want to continuously sell better -- and faster -- their sales enablement process must have a game-winning strategy. It's time for you to start selling smarter - and hitting your sales number - with the best B2B database in the market. Get started today.
Anything Goes Marketing
SEPTEMBER 17, 2006
Just like YouTube , there's a new picture slide show tool out there that B2C marketers should get a handle on. It's called Slide. Here's a sample : If you own a small business, you can also use this to show off your products in Ebay, Craigslist and other formats. Want to create your own Slide, start here. Have fun! Chad H. youtube
Anything Goes Marketing
SEPTEMBER 11, 2006
Amount of money I've made on Adsense in four months: $2.29 Number of inbound links that I have to my blog in four months: 229 The vast amount of knowledge that I've gained regarding blogging, e-marketing, search marketing (SEO), online advertising, and email marketing by blogging? PRICELESS! Here's a funny one I found on Youtube: Chad H. PS - I forgot to mention how much fun I'm having!
Anything Goes Marketing
SEPTEMBER 30, 2006
When you're designing a website, blog or email template do you ever think about how your users will actually see it? This may seem like a stupid question but it's extremely important to ensure that the people viewing your website or email see what you intended them to see. When I wrote a post on How to convert blog traffic into loyal readers I mentioned that it's important to make it easy for your readers to subscribe to your blog.
Anything Goes Marketing
SEPTEMBER 28, 2006
It's pretty crazy how popular internet advertising is and how much it continues to grow. According to a recent study internet ad revenue is up 37% over the first half of last year. See the full article at BtoBOnline Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers report that Search continues to lead that growth, accounting for 40% of total online advertising revenue in the first half.
Speaker: Ruth Stevens, President of eMarketing Strategy
In a pandemic, it’s more important than ever to focus on retaining and expanding current customers. So, how can sales and marketing support the retention effort? Join Ruth Stevens as she dives into this fast-paced session and reviews the 7 key strategies for current customer marketing, to enable sales and expand customer value.
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