markempa

AUGUST 26, 2012

Tweet The precursor of change is always pain. For most of us over the past four years, our marketplace has inflicted varying levels of it as we have slogged through the most challenging economic climate since the Great Depression. This is apparently not enough to make marketers and sales professionals embrace change and develop a formal lead generation strategy, considering that 75% of marketers still don’t have a formal lead generation process or guidelines according to MarketingSherpa’s 2012

Lead Generation 235

Lead Generation Sales Qualified Leads Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 235

ANNUITAS

AUGUST 28, 2012

Fifteen years ago I worked for a B2B marketing agency that had an outbound call center focused on lead generation. The goal for the majority of our programs was to have our telemarketers qualify names, gather some information and qualify these prospects by the famed BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeframe) criteria. We were quite successful in developing these programs for our clients and the leads were graded based on the answer to the BANT questions.

Lead Qualification 206

Lead Qualification Sales Qualified Leads Lead Ranking Leads 206

KoMarketing Associates

AUGUST 29, 2012

The ever-growing world of Twitter has unlocked opportunities for every type of user; everyone from emerging artists, celebrities, big brands, news sources, and B2B marketers can find a Twitter niche. Twitter offers users the chance to share, connect, converse, link, view, follow, search, engage, praise, and vent in 140 character tweets. B2B marketers, in particular, can use Twitter to attract prospects, interact and engage with clients, increase brand awareness, understand their audience , and m

Twitter 200

Twitter B2B Marketing B2B Paid Search Agency 200

Tomorrow People

AUGUST 30, 2012

Date: Next Tuesday! Time: 9:30am - 10:00am. Where: On your PC! 2012 has been the year that content/inbound marketing has forced itself into the mainstream consciousness of most B2B and B2C marketers. Many of the conferences and events I attend seem to be dominated by the topic, with particular reference to the holy grail for marketers. marketing return on investment (ROI).

Webinar Metrics 192

Webinar Metrics Content Marketing Advertising Agencies Content 192

Speaker: Neal Boornazian, President and Nancy Harhut, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer - HBT Marketing

Direct mail has consistently remained a powerful tool in the marketer's arsenal, but in an age of digital dominance, its effectiveness hinges on the strategic integration of behavioral science. 💡 When you incorporate powerful behavioral science principles into your direct mail marketing strategies, you can prompt the hardwired decision-making shortcuts your audience relies on — and that automatically unlocks new avenues for engagement, conversion, and brand loyalty.

Response Rate

ViewPoint

AUGUST 30, 2012

My guest today is Craig Rosenberg, Vice President, Sales and Marketing and Co-Founder at Focus. He is also author of a popular sales and marketing blog, Funnelholic , where he shares B2B content with an edge. Craig specializes in lead generation, lead qualification, and B2B marketing and sales. Below, you can read highlights from our discussion or use the links to start the video from different parts of the conversation. 2012 Trends: Social Marketing Gaining Real Traction & Growth Hacks.

Enterprise Management 189

Enterprise Management Work Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services 189

Marketing Insider Group

AUGUST 28, 2012

We’re winding down the summer and sending the kids back to school. Businesses around the world are starting to think about 2013 and what plans they need to put in place to grow their business, add new product lines, acquire more customers and make more money. So for the next 2 weeks, I will publish my top articles of the year, that you may have missed because you were just too darned busy.

Marketing & Strategy 176

Marketing & Strategy Marketing Strategy Planning Business 176

Biznology

AUGUST 28, 2012

The way you feel now about all those photos of you at the beach, in your suit, body-proud, tanned and drinking — liberation and joy — may end up making you feel completely different in your near future — trapped and ashamed. No matter how young you may be, reading these words, you need to start thinking long-game when it comes to your online reputation.

Tagging 170

Tagging Google Curation Facebook 170

ViewPoint

AUGUST 30, 2012

Brian Carroll is Executive Director of Revenue Optimization for MECLABS and spoke midday here in Orlando on Day Two of the MarketingSherpa 2012 B2B Summit. Some key takeaways all organizations should think about are: 64% of leads generated go directly to field sales without filtering or prequalification. Nurturing leads increases revenue by 125%—yet most companies don't do it. 80% of marketing generated leads are ignored, lost or ineffectively followed up by field sales (66% of sales people stop

Marketing Qualified Leads 176

Marketing Qualified Leads Leads Lead B2B 176

Digital B2B Marketing

AUGUST 28, 2012

If you are looking for another article that lists search, social media, persona development or lead management, this is not it. Those are skills that can easily be learned by the right person. The more important thing to know is what type of person can learn both the skills they need today and the new ones they will need tomorrow? Here are 7 key characteristics of B2B marketers that will be able to learn the skills needed today and tomorrow and will be able to identify and pursue new B2B marketi

B2B Marketing 165

B2B Marketing B2B Best Practices Marketing Management 165

Speaker: Carlos Hidalgo, Co-Founder & CEO of Digital Exhaust, Author, International Keynote & TEDx Speaker

Recent research shows that only 50% of B2B organizations state that they have good alignment between their marketing and sales teams. This lack of alignment tremendously impacts the ability to meet business goals, and is a limiting factor for building and maintaining customer relationships. While many B2B organizations continue to struggle with aligning their marketing and sales teams, they can take practical steps to unify both teams and simplify their overall approach.

B2B Sales

Marketing Insider Group

AUGUST 30, 2012

Search and social. These are 2 topics that you cannot separate. I should add content marketing to the list but I want to cover that next week. Last week I covered the 8 Marketing Strategy articles you missed when you were too busy. So in this post, I will review the most popular articles this year on the topics of social media and search engine marketing.

Social Media 163

Social Media Media Social Networks Buyer's Journey 163

Writing on the Web

AUGUST 29, 2012

Audience’s Interests, Needs, and Wants?" alt=" Content Marketing: What Are Your Target Audience’s Interests, Needs, and Wants?" />. Audience’s Interests, Needs, and Wants?" width="210" height="139" /> Content marketing is all about quality content that grabs the attention of your ideal prospects and clients. If you want to create content that engages readers, you need to know their online habits and interests.

Ning 161

Ning Content Marketing Wikipedia Work Management 161

Biznology

AUGUST 31, 2012

Image via CrunchBase. I read an article today that sums up so much of what passes for social media marketing. In that article, Patricio Robles wondered if your Twitter followers are silent or fake. It’s a well-sourced article that links to several studies and articles and well worth the read. (Go read it now. I’ll wait right here for you.

Twitter 158

Twitter Ethics Broadcasting Social Media 158

ViewPoint

AUGUST 28, 2012

Woke up in Gainesville, FL yesterday morning and headed out into light showers that ultimately approached tropical storm intensity before arriving in Orlando to heavy clouds but little rain. Prior to leaving Gainesville we searched for the not easy to find but definitely worth finding Peach Valley Café (ask for Lauren who my wife described as "a doll").

BtoB 152

BtoB Landing Pages Conference Course 152

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Webinar Metrics

Digital B2B Marketing

AUGUST 30, 2012

Your marketing makes me dislike you. In fact, it makes me, once a potential customer, reconsider if I should even do business with you. However, your marketing performance measurement doesn’t capture my disdain. I am simply one more individual that did not buy. I am just part of your standard drop-off rate. How many more people like me are out there?

ROI 144

ROI Autoresponders Advertising Agencies Correlation 144

ANNUITAS

AUGUST 28, 2012

Fifteen years ago I worked for a B2B marketing agency that had an outbound call center focused on lead generation. The goal for the majority of our programs was to have our telemarketers qualify names, gather some information and qualify these prospects by the famed BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeframe) criteria. We were quite successful in developing these programs for our clients and the leads were graded based on the answer to the BANT questions.

Lead Qualification 139

Lead Qualification Sales Qualified Leads Lead Ranking Leads 139

Biznology

AUGUST 29, 2012

WI: Milwaukee phone bank and labor walk, September 11, 2008 (Photo credit: aflcio). Monday, I talked about the Convey API , a new offering from Converseon that earned DataWeek’s Innovator of the Year on Social Media. My point Monday was that the Convey API allows the people who need accurate sentiment analysis to pay for it, even though monitoring platforms are getting cheaper and cheaper and not offering that kind of accuracy.

Social Media 158

Social Media Social Marketing Media Marketing Management 158

ViewPoint

AUGUST 28, 2012

This is the second in a series of four blogs about B2B sales lead management, marketing and sales metrics, and proverbs. Not all proverbs (or expressions or sayings) are well understood. Something else not well understood in marketing and sales circles is the importance of certain metrics. This second blog is about the importance of valuing qualified inbound and outbound marketing prospects and the proverb “A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.”.

Lead Management 146

Lead Management Sales Qualified Leads B2B Sales Sales Leads 146

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Content

Avitage

AUGUST 29, 2012

When you think about video, do you consider it predominately a visual or audio medium? I suspect most people would say visual. When we think video, we think camera. We think motion (video). But I have come to think of it as predominately an audio medium, albeit with important visual support. Indeed it is the effective combination of pictures and words together that create interesting and persuasive messages.

Video Marketing 131

Video Marketing Television marketing Advertising Mediums Paid Search Agency 131

The Effective Marketer

AUGUST 31, 2012

I’m excited about a new startup competition coming up soon. Instead of looking for the next mobile-social-facebookish-type startup, the winner will be a marketing technology startup. The best thing about the event, though, is that it will attempt to pair big brands with promising marketing technologies. If you are a startup founder developing some cool software or service for marketing or big brands, this is worth checking out.

Startups 120

Startups Mobile Marketing Software Marketing 120

Biznology

AUGUST 27, 2012

Photo credit: Wikipedia. Most of you know that I serve as Chief Strategist at Converseon, so I spend a lot of time thinking about sentiment analysis techniques for social media listening. My background is in text analytics, so I am no stranger to technology solutions for this problem, but I’ve long felt that technology is only part of the solution to the vexing problem of social media sentiment analysis.

Social Media 156

Social Media Work Management Marketing Management Media 156

Convince & Convert

AUGUST 29, 2012

Fairmont Hotels and Resorts recently rolled out a Facebook contest in coordination with ePrize called Everyone’s An Original Personality that matched fans up to their lifestyle interests to help define their travel personality. “We’re always looking for fun and creative ways to engage with our fans and followers,” shares Andrea Johnson, Executive Director, CRM at Fairmont.

Facebook 125

Facebook Segmentation CRM Creativity 125

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Deliverability

B2B Marketing Traction

AUGUST 29, 2012

SEO technology is fast-moving and ever-changing, the industry is a highly fragmented and full of new folks entering it to “get rich quick,” so it’s no wonder it’s hard to learn the truth about SEO. In this blog post, I summarize which metatags matter and which don’t when optimizing your website for search engine performance.

SEO 102

SEO Keywords Guidelines Opinions 102

Paul Gillin

AUGUST 29, 2012

This an excerpt from the opening chapter of Attack of the Customers: Why Critics Assault Brands Online and What You Can Do About It by Paul Gillin and Greg Gianforte. It’s due to be published this fall. If you’d like to be notified when the book is available, please comment below or drop me a line. In March, 2010, Procter & Gamble announced the most significant technical advance in disposable diapers in a quarter century.

Paid Search Agency 101

Paid Search Agency Advertising Agencies Facebook Customer Satisfaction 101

Biznology

AUGUST 30, 2012

Bulls Eye (Photo credit: Jens Dahlin). Three clients. Three stories. But they are all, in a sense, the same story. a failure to focus. Marketing has always needed focus–focus on who your best customers are and what your biggest differentiation is. Because digital marketing forces you to compete with many more companies from all over the world, it requires that you have a laser-like focus on who your target market is.

RFP 140

RFP Paid Search Agency Differentiation Course 140

Convince & Convert

AUGUST 29, 2012

Fairmont Hotels and Resorts recently rolled out a Facebook contest in coordination with ePrize called Everyone’s An Original Personality that matched fans up to their lifestyle interests to help define their travel personality. “We’re always looking for fun and creative ways to engage with our fans and followers,” shares Andrea Johnson, Executive Director, CRM at Fairmont.

Segmentation 124

Segmentation Facebook Marketing Agencies 1 Social Media 124

Advertiser: ZoomInfo

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr

B2B Marketing

Adobe Experience Cloud Blog

AUGUST 30, 2012

by Jason Miller Dreamforce is just a couple of weeks away and top of mind for many B2B marketing professionals. One of the most valuable aspects of Dreamforce, or any conference for that matter, is the cornucopia of networking opportunities. It’s prime time for meeting and greeting new people and building relationships that you can bring home with you.

Marketo 99

Marketo Network Marketing Conference B2B Marketing 99

Industrial Marketing Today

AUGUST 27, 2012

Call it digital marketing or inbound marketing with content , the fact is marketing is now playing a much more active role in complex industrial sales. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll refer to it as digital marketing in this post and state that content is what drives this engine for generating qualified leads and creating sales opportunities. Manufacturers and industrial companies often use solutions or consultative selling to add value for their customers and transform themselves from supplier

RFP 92

RFP Peer-to-peer High Quality Lead Lead Scoring 92

MLT Creative

AUGUST 29, 2012

As b2b marketing strategist Ardath Albee states, “a persona takes a segment of your company’s aggregate customer profile and fleshes it out with detailed information that represents real. MLT Creative B2B Ideas @ Work Blog. Our ideas, musings, thoughts, reviews on b2b marketing topics.

Buyer Personas 65

Buyer Personas Aggregators B2B Ad Building 65