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IDC Analyst Stresses
Critical Role Of Marketing
Performance Measurement |
By Amanda Ferrante, Assistant Editor
Since marketing is now included in weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting and strategic planning process meetings, Marketing Performance Measurement (MPM) processes are becoming an essential tool to create a well-communicated cadence with sales and corporate management.
According to a recent presentation by Michael Gerard, vice president of research, executive advisory group & CMO of advisory practice at IDC, MPM process is imperative to communication, collaboration, and coordination within marketing. As part of the recent IDC webinar titled "Marketing Performance Measurement 2.0," Gerard highlighted the elements of an effective MPM process and its relevance to success alignment between marketing and sales. |
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Kraft Tallies $100M in Sales
Lift By Tapping Into Online Communities |
By Amanda Ferrante, Assistant Editor
Tapping into consumers’ constant desire for a successful weight loss program, Kraft Foods partnered with South Beach Diet to introduce a new meal and snack product line. To jumpstart the launch, Kraft worked closely with online consumer groups to learn about their needs and educate them about dieting basics, through an internally developed health and wellness community. Delivering on the promise of giving consumers products that meet their dieting needs, the South Beach line boasted $100 million in sales in its first six months on the market. |
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Sophisticated Search Strategies Showing
More Support For Lead Gen Activities |
| By Amanda Ferrante, Assistant Editor |
While spending on search engine marketing (SEM) has been rising steadily over the past few years, many organizations are now getting a leg up on the competition by refining their search strategies to generate more targeted leads and support specific campaigns. Using advanced tactics such as ad groups and negative keywords, companies selling complex solutions are seeing improved search results and identifying prospects earlier in the sales funnel.
According to the “2007 State of the Market” report released by SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization), the North American SEM industry grew from $9.4 billion in 2006 to $12.2 billion in 2007, exceeding the earlier projections of $11.5 billion for 2007. North American SEM spending is now projected to grow to $25.2 billion in 2011, up significantly from the $18.6 billion forecast a year ago. |
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New Survey Shows Firms Focusing On Demand
Generation Are Outgrowing Their Competition |
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By Amanda Ferrante, Assistant Editor
Companies with effective lead generation strategies are more likely to outgrow their competitors, according to the findings of a recent research study conducted by Marketing Profs and the Lenskold Group. The report titled “BtoB Lead Generation: Marketing ROI & Performance Evaluation Study,” explored the practices companies are utilizing to measure the performance and return of their marketing efforts.
According to the study, more than half (57%) of those surveyed expect to outgrow their primary competitors in the upcoming year. The survey also pointed to a direct correlation between lead generation capabilities and the growth of an organization, with a combined 58% of those companies outgrowing competitors describing their lead generation performance as much more or somewhat more effective than competitors, compared to just 20% of those whose growth was lagging behind competitors.
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Marketers Missing Out On Channel
Partner Opportunities For Demand Gen |
| By John Gaffney, Senior Analyst |
In this era of being socially networked it’s ironic that some BtoB marketers may be ignoring a rich source of lead and demand generation right in their own network. That source: their channel partners. According to many experts in this area, channel partners are often untapped or mismanaged when it comes to the free flow of information that will lead to growth.
“Especially at this time when we’re working through a tough economy, reaching out to channel partners and their ability to provide leads is important,” says Shari Marion-Hoff, CEO of channel marketing specialist Hawkeye-Cohesion. “Channel partners represent a variable rather than fixed cost, and utilizing them can drive down your overall cost of sales. But still supplier companies struggle with it.” |
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Aberdeen Study Shows Email Personalization
Driving Higher Open & Conversion Rates |
| By Amanda Ferrante, Assistant Editor |
Personalization techniques help organizations deliver relevant email marketing campaigns by incorporating customer profile information, segmentation or demographic behavior, and other attributes from customer databases, according to new data from Aberdeen Group. While the report titled, “Email Marketing: Get Personal With Your Customer,” found almost unanimous agreement (96% of respondents) that email personalization can improve email marketing performance, it also found dramatic performance variations among leaders and laggards. |
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DemandGen Report To Recognize Top 10
Firms For Driving Pipeline Optimization |
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DemandGen Report is seeking nominations for its first annual DemandGen 10 Awards. Presented in September 2008, the DemandGen 10 Awards will recognize ten leading companies who have utilized sales & marketing automation to fuel corporate growth iniatives.
Winners will be selected from a variety of industry verticals, including technology, professional services, telecom, financial services, health care and others where pipeline optimization has helped to drive complex selling cycles.
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Online Video Drawing More Eyeballs
Among Marketers, Expanding in BtoB |
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With comScore data showing 9.5 billion online videos were viewed by 138 million Americans last year, more and more marketers are turning to video as a viral marketing tactic to support their branding and demand generation efforts. While the new media is being adopted more rapidly by consumer marketers, BtoB marketers are continuing to find success with a mix of video-based resources.
After documenting a 10% increase in web traffic with a viral video campaign at NetQoS Inc., demand generation specialist Pam O'Neal Mickelson is putting her video experience to work at BreakingPoint Systems. Although BreakingPoint targets a specialized audience of network equipment manufacturers, O’Neal has used online video to validate its testing methodologies and the company has seen a significant uptick in activity.
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The First Word
On Tracking Last
Touch Attribution |
By Guy Powell, Principal & Senior Consultant, DemandROMI
Have marketers been measuring effectiveness all wrong? Has measuring lead source been all wrong all this time? Should we stop asking our leads where they heard about our offer? Uh oh.
There is a new marketing concept entering marketers’ vernacular called last touch attribution which is supposed to help get a handle on improving the measurement of marketing effectiveness. The fun part of this term is that it is both right and wrong at the same time. It can help marketers make the right decisions or, if applied incorrectly, the wrong decisions. Let’s see how. |
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7 Tips For Increasing
Conversions On Free
Trials To Customers |
By Howard J. Sewell, President of Connect Direct
The recent explosion of SaaS (hosted) solutions has brought about a resurgence in software vendors utilizing free trials as a primary means of acquiring new customers. Fortunately for them, these companies can now take full advantage of today’s sophisticated marketing automation technology that enables automatic, personalized, rules-based, follow-up e-mails to all trial registrants. However, even the best technology on the planet can’t convert prospects to customers if the underlying lead nurturing strategy is suspect. |
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Empty Your Pipeline
To Reveal The Real
Sales Opportunities |
By Nigel Edelshain, Sales 2.0
When I last held down a real job I worked in a small sales team of senior sales executives selling high-end, high-cost technology projects to Wall Street banks.
Like most sales teams we would have weekly sales meetings where the team and our sales manager met in a conference room and reviewed our sales pipeline and what needed to be done to move each opportunity forward. |
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8 Steps To Build Internal
Demand for Automated
Lead Management |
By Jeff Kostermans, President, LeadGenesys
We recently signed our 12th international client and in the process of enrolling them in our SmartStart program, they inquired about how to go about introducing and proving the value of lead nurturing to the sales team. A good question - no matter what country you are in - and certainly worth a few words.
In helping this client prove the value to their sales team, we established the following 8 steps which are critical to building demand and buy-in for the processes necessary to make automated lead nurturing a success. As you will see, these steps go far beyond introducing yet another great initiative from marketing.
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| Sales 2.0 Conference |
The first Sales 2.0 Conference will demonstrate how combining next-generation Web technologies such as web conferencing, social networking, prospect databases, and web site monitoring services with innovative sales processes can dramatically accelerate the sales cycle.
http://www.sales20conf.com/ |
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| SheEO Sales Shebang |
This unique event brings together women sellers and an All Star cast of female sales experts.
WHEN: Nov. 5 & 6, 2007
WHERE: Sheraton Bloomington Hotel, Minneapolis, MN
Conctact: Jill Konrath
http://salesshebang.com/index.jsp?top=20972 |
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