Not Your Parent’s Old Company Newsletter

At the same time, Aprimo recently reintroduced eNewsletters to our customers, partners and prospects. Why? Anyone who receives information from Aprimo marketing knows we strive to provide useful tools to make marketer’s jobs more strategic and productive. Yet, in our internal marketing meetings, we always came back to a need for an interactive channel that tied all of our nurturing campaigns, thought leadership papers, resources, tools in best practices in a summarized, hyperlinked and easy-to-digest resource. We also wanted to turn up the dial on our listening meter.

Some call it the “New Frontier.” To others, it’s like the “Wild West” or the “Next Big Thing.” Whatever nickname you choose, just remember this: location marketing has arrived . . . even though no one seems to know if it’s here to stay, or exactly where it’s going.

Confused? Maybe a little intimidated by all the hoopla? You’re not alone. At times, it can seem like it’s impossible to keep up with today’s constantly evolving technology and the multiplicity of new channels it spawns.

And, that’s particularly true with regard to location marketing. In fact, it seems that even those leading the charge aren’t sure where this new digital channel is headed.

As Ben Whitford writes in his latest blog post, Where Next For Location Marketing? :

Speaking at TWTRCON this week, Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley, Gowalla CEO Josh Williams, Starbucks social strategist Brad Nelson and SimpleGEO chief Matt Galligan admitted that the industry was going through a “Wild West” period, and that it would be some time before the sector’s conceptual foundations and technical know-how shake down into an equilibrium.

Ben then uses the rest of the article to outline five key take-home points about the current state of location marketing, and I think each one is worth a few minutes of your time. For instance, I specifically like the first bullet:

Location marketing will suit some brands more than others.

By pointing out that a food and beverage business like Starbucks, for example, may have more to gain from location-based promotions than an online retailer like Dell, Ben drives home the message that as marketing leaders today, we have to proceed with caution, carefully weighing pros and cons. New technology doesn’t always equate with better technology, and I worry that as marketers, we’re always being drawn to the next shiny bauble –even though sometimes that’s at the expense of what’s best for a particular campaign.

After all, despite all the changes we are facing, our fundamental mission remains constant, and whether we’re serving as the CMO of a public corporation, the head of marketing at a mid-sized enterprise, or somewhere in-between, our charge, as always, is to grow revenue, retain customers and improve market results.

If, when all is said and done, location-based services help you accomplish that fundamental mission, of course, you’ll want to dive right in and stake your claim in the “Wild West.” If not, sit tight. The way technology is changing these days, there’s bound to be a new “Next Big Thing” right around the corner.
 

This is the third in my series of how the Imperatives of the Marketing Revoloution apply toBusiness-to-Business (B2B) marketing.  This imperative is titled "Let Go, Customers Control Your Brand." 

It could be said that this has been the case all along.  In reality, the customer's opinion of your company is always what has driven your brand.  The major difference is the level of communication from customer to customer versus vendor to customer has changed the game.  In the past, a strong marketing organization to influence the opinion of the market regarding their brand by controlling the message and the references and testimonials.  That is no longer the case...social marketing has ended any aspect of control by a vendor.  Now all of your references and realities are out there for the market to learn and understand.

So, how do you respond as a B2B Marketer?  The same way you need to respond to anything these days - with the truth.  What is important for you to do is make sure that the truth is good news.  So, what is important is for you to listen to prospects and customers needs and provide a solution with vision that addresses those needs.  Customers and prospects can articulate their issues and challenges (it's the rare customer that can provide feedback to the design of a product, however).  You need to apply creativity and innovation to addressing those issues and challenges.

The market will buy on message for a while.  There's a groundswell of evidence that many current b2b marketers are not realizing the vision of nurture marketing and lead scoring.  Customers are still buying but expect some lash back in the lead management arena soon.  Customers cannot keep up with the volume of content required for lead nurturing and this is preventing them from realizing the value that vendors have promised. I think it's similar to adding automation at the end of a manufacturing process but not setting up your materials and purchasing.   You can ramp marketing volume without setting up your whole marketing process to support the volume...but I digress. 

So, let's test this theory.  Will customers start to speak up about these issues (it means admitting struggles publicly so that part will be interesting)?  Will any of the "hot" lead management brands start to suffer from this lack of success? 

Here's a link to the previous posts -

1. Marketing Must be Accountable
2. The CMO as a Change Agent

Obviously I’m a big fan of social media. I’ve devoted an entire blog to it after all.

I use Facebook obsessively.  Twitter, LinkedIn, professional and personal blogs . . . I’m in with them all.  And, not only do I use these channels, I enjoy using them. I see tremendous value in the connections I have made –and continue to make each day –on social media networks.

But, I have a confession to make. I don’t feel the same way about location-based services. And, that’s why, I have to admit, I turned my nose up at this week’s long-anticipated news about Facebook Places.

Don’t get me wrong. I completely understand how valuable services such as Foursquare, Gowalla and now Places can be to a company’s marketing strategy—especially a B2C company. These platforms offer enormous potential for mobile targeted advertising and search, and I’m sure that over the next year, we’ll see an explosion of new apps and services tied to location-based approaches. And why not? The audience for location-based services is continuing to grow.

I’m just saying that although I’m an early adopter of new technologies, these LB services have left me flat thus far, and even turned me off in cases like the oft-referred to “#boresquare”, which clogs up my tweetstream with useless updates about people sitting in coffee shops in Boise and becoming the mayor of Burlingame Bakery.  Are you kidding me??? Who CARES???

I have no desire to “check in” wherever I go, and I don’t really care where you are, either.  As Adrian Chen so artfully points out at Gawker, I most definitely don’t want to be “tagged” by someone who happens to be momentarily sharing a location with me, either.

Does that mean I’ll miss out on a merchant’s coupon, news of a friend who’s just around the corner, or one of Foursquare’s coveted badges? I guess so.  The only thing that bums me out is missing the coupon.  I’d love to get a notice while walking by Bloomingdales that Manolo’s are on sale. I’ve been promised that coupon since 2000 when talk of mobile apps first burst onto the scene.  I’m still waiting…

It’s going to be interesting to see how location-based services evolve now that Facebook has joined the mix (and some think Google is soon to follow). I plan to follow these developments closely and blog on them frequently. When I do so, I’ll be writing to you, quite contentedly, from a location that –even though it’s far from secret –will remain “undisclosed.”

In my last post, I introduced our Imperatives for the Marketeing Revolution.  I'm taking each of these and proviing a B2B perspective. So, here's the second imperative - The CMO Must be the Change Agent.

For the past few decades B2B Marketing has largely played the role of support to sales. They tend to be largely task-oriented and focused on providing sales tools and feeding the sales pipeline to an ever-changing quality standard defined by the sales organization. However, B2B marketing can’t look to sales to change what they demand from the marketing department. Marketing, and in particular, the CMO has to drive this change. The objective isn’t to finally get out from under the rule of sales. Rather, the goal is to step up next to sales and jointly define a combined marketing and sales process that will align from the marketing messaging through the sales messaging delivered to qualified prospects. The change associated with this will permeate the organization and require strong leadership and joint visioning with sales leadership. This level of change and leadership needs to come from your CMO. 

My summer internship comes to a close today. It has been a tumultuous and exciting past 10 weeks, and I couldn’t be more grateful to Aprimo for giving me the opportunity to glean information from them as I progress in my studies.  I want to take a few minutes to share with everyone 5 or 6 lessons I’ve learned this summer.  Through the travesties and victories, from the impersonal to the personal, my hope is that at least one my points will serve as forewarnings and expectations for future neophytes.

1) After 10 weeks, I’m still a neophyte.  What’s between my ears is considered a brain, but what I truly know is infinitesimally small compared to everyone else.  Nonetheless, I hope my hunger for knowledge will never be satiated.  I will always be a neophyte.

2) Thank God for Aprimo software.  Proving ROI and breaking down silos within marketing is much, much, much harder than I ever imagined.  Our leaders and our software programmers deserve flowers.

3) Marketing is much more than the 4P theory of price, product, promotion, and place. 

4) Marketing is not much more than some hard work, common sense, and creative ideas.

5) Prediction number 1: I bet I could make a lot of money if I copywrite the phrase “Spam SMS Text Messaging”.  Mobile marketing will become the next big thing in the marketing space.

6) Prediction number 2: Customers will love Spam SMS Text Messaging.  It’s not considered spam if the message is personal, directed, and relevant, which is exactly what mobile marketing delivers.  

While the summer does to come to a close, my internship has been extended part-time through December.  Thus, for all my avid fans who anxiously await my new pieces, I will continue to entertain (or bore) at least through December.  I will be on vacation next week, but stay tuned.  In the words of Arnold, “I’ll be back”.  To all my Aprimo friends and other strangers I have met on this summer journey, thank you.  It has been a splendid summer stint, and I cannot wait to continue the marketing revolution with you.
 

What’s at the heart of a successful social media marketing campaign? Are there certain attributes that make one company’s efforts sparkle a little more brightly than others do?

According to ClickZ’s Liana Evans, Ford Motor Co. is a great example of a company that has fine-tuned its social media marketing to a point where it can serve as a robust case study in how to do it right, and in her recent blog post, “5 Reasons Why Ford Continues to Kick Butt,” she outlines the key points that make the automaker’s approach “shine.”

“For a few years now, Scott Monty has headed up the social media marketing efforts at Ford with resounding success,” Evans writes. “Monty and his team do more than just "pimp" Ford's products in social media communities; they continually provide valuable content about Ford to engage enthusiastic fans of the brand.”

More specifically, she distills the company’s approach down to five main points. Ford:
1. Understands its audience.
2. Learns from past campaigns.
3. Sets goals and measures.
4. Integrates.
5. Looks forward.

I particularly like that Evans  recognizes Ford’s integrated digital approach, one that includes a variety of platforms, such as Facebook (Did you see the 2011 Ford Explorer reveal?), PPC ads, YouTube videos, e-mail and Twitter –all of which, of course, work together with more traditional campaigns on tv, radio and print. This type of integration points back to the first point and shows, again, how Ford understands its audience and is ready, willing and able to reach out to them and encourage engagement.

Is there a particular social media marketing approach that you have seen work well? Which components are essential to your strategy?
 

My aunt is an extremely successful business person, and has worked her way up to a high-level corporate position for a very large company.  I usually go to her for career and business advice if I ever find myself in a scenario I’m unfamiliar with, which is often.  She was in town last week and as usual, we started talking about my career, where I’m going, what I want to do, etc.  Obviously, I’m interested in marketing and hence the subject of marketing was brought up in conversation.  During our discourse, she casually said, “anyone can do marketing, and that marketing is the first one to go when companies begin their layoffs.”  I should point out that she received her start in Operations, so she does have a bias, but nonetheless, her comments got me thinking…

I want to start with the second point of her statement.  “Marketing is the first one to go when companies begin their layoffs.”  This statement validates the very core of Aprimo’s messaging.  As part of our new marketing initiatives, we are honing in on the point that marketers must prove their ROI.  If marketers can prove their worth, then suddenly, they’re off the chopping block.  On the flipside, her statement is telling me that we’re not doing enough.  Our message must continue to be pushed out.  So, please join our revolution and help us spread the message and the value of marketing.

Now for the first part of her statement, “anyone can do marketing.”  I’ve never thought of marketing as that truly anyone can do it.  However, I am unable to prove her wrong.  After all, we spend our lives marketing ourselves and trying to look better in the eyes of our friends, coworkers, spouses, children, and acquaintances.  Resumes are simply a whitepaper on yourself.  Interviews are a product demo.  Your social media pages represent your brand.  Every minute of every day, we spend marketing ourselves.  Looking at marketing in this light, I suppose anyone can do marketing.  However, I’m looking for some disagreements.  What are everyone else’s thoughts?   
 

PR Playbook:  Location-Based Services May be a Trap

• Let’s say you have a CEO who’s active on Twitter. Your company is in the midst of addressing a crisis and your CEO is updating the world through his/her account. What could be worse than seeing his/her updates from a golf course in the Bahamas when the crisis is happening somewhere else?
• Do you really want to broadcast locations of your executives? If your company is rumored to be in negotiations of acquiring another firm in a small town in Iowa – and your headquarters are in Florida – it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or blogger) to figure out that he/she is in negotiations if they are Tweeting updates from Iowa. 
• Please rob me. Then there’s the whole “I’m traveling away from home,” privacy concern. Tell the world that you’re traveling in Paris and you’ll come home to an empty house. PleaseRobMe.com is a website that gives awareness to privacy concerns and the tools you need to know to protect yourself.  Savvy thieves know how to search people who are traveling and find their home through on-line telephone directories and other databases.

• Don’t link your home address to your account. This is the easiest way for thieves to find out where you are not. Most services either won’t make this information public or will allow you to choose what information you share. Pay special attention to ensure control of this information.
• Don’t use your full name. Robbers can easily look up your name if there is a record of your home address available anywhere online or even in the local phone book. To limit broadcast of where you are, hide your full name.
• Be selective about which services you allow to pinpoint your location. Many applications will automatically ask you if they can find out where you are so they can offer you content and services most useful to you. Allow them access only where you feel most comfortable.
•  Be selective about who sees your location. In social networking apps involving your location, set limits on who is able to see that information -- everyone, all your contacts, select contacts or no one.
•  Read the privacy policy. Above all, arm yourself with information on how each service works. Each privacy policy should indicate how the service uses any of the data it requests from you.

I'm not tethered to my laptop, but I certainly couldn't say that of my iPhone and iPad.  Our new mobile app makes this more true than ever.  Here's my story...

If you're a marketer like me, you are always "on."  I mean you think a lot about marketing even when you're not at work.  Like you, as a consumer and business professional, I am  (as is my immediate family) bombarded constantly by off- and on-line messages, which never fail to get me thinking about the strategy and tactics behind a commercial message that is highly relevant.  I am particularly curious about the communications that completely miss the mark!    I'll also admit that I am a weekend peeker -- on my own marketing initiatives.  I like to know how marketing campaigns are progressing as well as the status of creative reviews, etc.  Don't get me wrong, I do have a life.   And, it just got better with our mobile app!

When I purchased my iPad, I said goodbye and closed my work laptop on Friday evening and used my iPad for everything digital, including managing my work and personal email boxes.  I couldn't, however, fulfill my desire to know the progress or status of some marketing activities or check the numbers on a campaign report, etc.   Sooooo... on occasion I'd boot up my laptop to access our integrated marketing software solution. (More than you think!)  

As of this Monday when we released our mobile app, I can stay with almost 100% confidence that I can power down my laptop on Friday for the whole weekend and still remain informed about my projects.  I am particularly excited about the ability to use my iPad and/or iPhone on workdays that take me away from my desk.   For starters, I plan to take my iPad instead of my laptop to certain industry events for note taking.  It's much more portable and easier to carry, and importantly, I have as much access to any of the marketing information I need -- email marketing reports, post campaign analyses, digital assets, etc.  And when the opportunity arises -- as it often does -- I can pull up a solution brochure and send it to an interested prospect on the spot.  Isn't being mobile with marketing automation awesome?

Check it out --

At the Aprimo Marketing Summit in February of this year, we gathered a group of our customers, partners, and thought leaders together for the spark that has now become a crowd-sourced effort to define the Imperatives of the Marketing Revolution.  The group defined some of the initial imperatives which have since grown to a list of ten.  We are publishing articles on each imperative over time with input coming from those initial discussions and further research and conversations we are having with marketers across the globe.  The first two have been published - "Marketing Must Be Accountable" and "The CMO Must Be the Change Agent." 

I thought it would be good to blog some about these imperatives through a B2B Marketing lens.  I'll focus on the first imperative and then catch up to our publishing schedule and blog on this as we release the furture imperative articles.

Marketing Must Be Accountable -
So what does this mean?  Accountable implies we are responsible for the results - good or bad.  I think in general marketers are willing to admit when something works and when it doesn't.  I don't know that marketing inherently shys away from responsibility for what they do.  The real issue here is knowing what worked and what didn't.  There have been multiple studies on the average tenure of a CMO giving visibility to the fact that CMOs seem to be the shortest tenure on Executive Teams overall.  Why is that?  The simple answer is that revenue didn't increase under that CMO...however, the Sales Exec, the CEO and other Business Unit leaders would fall victim to this same issue and they have longer average tenures.  No...the real reason is the CMO's ability to answer the obvious question about revenue shortfalls...."Why did this happen?"  CMOs in the past have not been able to answer this fundamental question.  We still live in the shadow of John Wanamaker's lament over knowing which half of his marketing was effective.

Now B2B CMOs have advantages and disadvantages that are unique.  On the advantage side, there are not as many B2B marketers that are heavily invested in TV, Radio, Print and general outdoor advertising that is, quite frankly, harder to measure.  A larger majority of B2B marketing happens online which is clearly easier to track.  On the other side, it is much harder to attribute one marketing action to a result in B2B marketing.  The sales cycles are long and there are a number of touches that happen during the buying cycle.  This makes it harder to pull out the things that are working. It becomes a portfolio analysis to see what combination of touches led to revenue and find the common elements.  You also need to look at your marketing aligned to the buying cycle and see what content is being successful at moving prospects to the next stage.  The term "content marketing" is starting to show up around this issue.

Aprimo addresses this at the fundamental data level.  Aprimo makes it very easy to associate multiple attributes and multiple touches to a specific individual within a specific company.  This provides a portion of the picture required to start to tackle this problem.  For example, purchase history, browsing history and marketing touches can easily be associated with an individual in the Aprimo database.  This can come from multiple data sources including the integration to your SFA tool of choice where this contact is tracked as a lead to an opportunity to a closed deal via lead management and synchronization with the sales funnel in the SFA.  The reporting engine in Aprimo then allows you to get at this data to explore the marketing aspects that are working. In addition, you can easily export data for analysis in a Business Intelligence tool.  When you combine this with the ability to track the true marketing spend of your programs and activities, you can track true Marketing ROI.

So, the CMO Must Be Accountable.  To get to this point, they need to be a Change Agent...but that gets to the next imperative...which will be covered in the next blog.

As we love to do in marketing, there is a new term surfacing...content marketing.  It's being billed as the revolutionary new way to market where you no longer push messages out.  Instead, we put content out there that is relevant to different buyers at different stages of the buying cycle...so the content becomes paramount.  I don't mean to sound flip about this concept.  Buyers are researching a lot more in advance and on their own via a multitude of online and personal network resources.  So, the concept of content marketing is real.  The idea that we no longer push any messages out is not real...it's the normal hype that everything new has to totally wipe out the way we currently do everything.  But, I'll save that for a later blog.

The point I want to make here is actually about this channel - blogging.  The first impulse people have about blogging is that you become a well-known, respected, publisher and you build a cadre of loyal readers that anxiously await your next blog.  There are a few that have reached that pinnacle and a number of others that have proclaimed this to be the case to try an encourage readers to come back.  In reality, most blogs are found through organic search and most people don't care near as much about who wrote the blog as they do what it is about.  Consequently, they may read one blog from you driven by a search result but won't come back to your blog unless another search brings them there.  If you offer something relevant (products, services, more education, success stories) then, depending on why they are there, you may get them to click through to your website.  Since they got their via search, there is a reasonable chance of this happening.

So, what do you do?

Consider the following facts - Typically 80% of blog readers each day are new to a blog.  A typical blog reader spends about 30 seconds on a blog. So, you aren't creating loyal readers but you are providing good, relevant content that can drive search traffic. And this isn't "tricking the system".  Blogs are picked up in search engines because they are fresh and relevant.  In the face of marketers trying to figure out how to provide enough relevant content to meet the varied needs of buyers, blogging provides a very elegant and obtainable solution.

Aprimo provides a corporate blogging solution that is optimized to drive SEO and support centralized review and approval, if this concept is of interest to you.  If you're facing a mountain of content needs, what do you think of this idea?

I’ve only been married for a little less than a year (my anniversary is Aug. 1st), but I have learned a wonderful trick in communicating with my wife.  I ask for forgiveness and not for permission.  It used to be that if I wanted to do something crazy, such as go out with the guys or wear unmatching clothes to work, I would lovingly ask, “beautiful wife, does this shirt match these pants?”  The response was usually a rolling of the eyes followed by a diatribe about egregious fashion faux pas’.  However, I realized that if I did not ask beforehand and simply wore the black, striped pants with the checkered shirt and brown belt, I would usually hear, “those clothes don’t match” at some point later on.  Period.  No rolling eyes.  No heavy sighs.  No prayers to heaven asking why she wasn’t blessed with a decently matched husband.  I would then respond with a simple, “I’m sorry; I didn’t know.”    

As I alluded to in my previous post, I traveled to Dallas, TX last Monday for an online marketing summit.   These online marketing summits occur across the country in various cities.  The goal is to provide a forum for local business and marketing leaders to gather, share knowledge, and learn marketing best practices.  I was sent there as part of our corporate communication initiative to gather testimonials on video which Aprimo can then use in some of their marketing campaigns.  It is an all day event.  For the entire morning, I would go around to various people, give them my spiel about who I am, what I’m doing, and why I need to put them on video.  Only one person agreed to go on video.

For the afternoon, I changed my strategy.  I started using the forgiveness tactic.  I would simply go up to people and ask them questions.  To my great surprise, no one complained.  After I asked my three questions, I would apologize for intruding on their space; tell them who I am, what I’m doing, and what their video may be used for.  Again, no one complained.  By the end of the day, I had in the neighborhood of 10 testimonials.  I do not know why people are much more receptive to forgiveness than they are to permission, but from a neophyte’s point of view, it was an intriguing lesson for me in the world of communications marketing.

p.s. This is a message to all husbands: the forgiveness strategy does not work all the time.  Please use the method wisely.  I forgot to give my wife a card for her birthday – I’m never living that one down!
 

I had the pleasure of meeting with a former boss today to talk about the ins-and-outs of B2B data management, including off- and on-line information.  I've never met another person quite like Mike (I'll call him Mike here) who gets really giddy about addresses, or more specifically, the processes used to improve their accuracy and quality:

• convert and parse
• standardize components
• correct
• enhance
• update

The improvements in the address data, in turn, lead to improvements in merge-purge - that dedupe process that consolidates all the sources of information about an individual to produce a 360-degree customer (or prospect view) for marketing.  

Maybe you're thinking... but most B2B marketing is online, why do I need address processing anymore?Yes, the majority of B2B communications are digital, but without address information you will struggle to:

• append firmographic information from industry files
• match to industry master lists to tie parent and child records together
• link individuals at the same company site
• match to industry data assets to standardize company name
• assign Sales reps by geography (unless you require Zip Code at the time of registration) 
• link revenue to marketing efforts

Most importantly, however, is the importance of quality address data to create the single customer and/or customer view, which remains a huge challenge for many B2B marketers.  And the challenge is only getting bigger with the continued expansion of data available for use.  Everything B2B marketers do is better when the data are accurate -- campaign segmentations, interactive email dialogs, lead management and results analysis.

It's been a while since I've been in the B2C and B2B data management trenches like Mike, and they've made some real strides in helping B2B organizations improve the quality of their marketing data.  

Here's another little advancement:  Linking home address to work address.  It's not out of reach!  With home address, the data available to you about the individual grows exponentially.  Isn't it an exciting time to be in B2B marketing!? 

Let me know what your biggest data management challenges are.  I guess I get a little giddy about address data, too.  I learned from the best.  (Thanks, Mike.)

cg

Have you been keeping up with the mobile ad wars between Google and Apple? The wars started back in November 2009 when Google announced plans to buy the AdMob network. Apple responded by launching its new iAd network, which sends ads to iPhone users.  

• According to SNL Kagan, virtually 100 percent of Americans will have mobile devices by the year 2013.
• Punchkick Interactive & Mobile Marketing Watch claims there are twice as many “texters” as email users worldwide.
• Forrester Research estimates that this half-billion dollar industry will surpass $1.25 billion in 2014.

Good luck – and I hope to see you on my iPhone soon.

I was looking for some stats on email deliverability recently, and turned to MarketingSherpa's 2010 Email Marketing Benchmark Report.  As I paged through some of the charts and read through some of the theories (for the results), I found one particularly interesting -- The Actions Marketers take to Improve Email Deliverability.  Thought I would share this with other marketers who like numbers and an opportunity to look for implications:

For all companies responding, regardless of size or marketing focus (B2B or B2C):

• 70% cited changing their email marketing template
• 32% switched from a shared IP to a dedicated one
• 30% said they changed email service providers 

Obviously multiple answers were permitted.  When I looked at the numbers when they broke them down by company size (L = +1000 employees; M = 100 to 1000; and S = <100), it seemed that the medium sized companies outpaced their large and small counterparts to implement delivery service monitoring.  Small companies actually switched email service providers at a significantly higher rate than large and medium companies.  I figured that result may be correlated to the fact that they also had the highest incidence of an in-house solution.  Perhaps they realize that they are not in the email delivery business and should leave that to the experts.

I agree.  Email marketing is clearly the dominant communication vehicle used by B2B marketers, and Return Path's research shows that B2B inboxes are still the most difficult to reach.  Marketers know delivery requires the right mix of technology, services and relationships (between the physical mail sender and ISPs) to maximize inbox placement rates -- i.e., get delivered. 

I'd love to hear some more discussion about what everyone thinks of the 70% that changed their template.  Tell me your experiences!

I was reading the results of a study that challenged B2B marketers long-held belief that human emotions were only a factor in personal purchases, but not commercial ones.  Even without the research, I never believed emotions weren't a factor.  I mean did every human being leave their emotions behind when they arrived at the office?  Quite the contrary, they combined it with the other colleagues on the purchase team. 

Creating relevant email marketing messages and offers takes more than just understanding the organization's business challenges and how you can solve them.  It's about addressing the single key emotion of the buyers -- fear.  In consumer marketing there is an emotional play on Risk and Reward, which does not exist in B2B marketing.  The individual doesn't achieve a personal "reward" for the purchase, which leaves Risk uncountered.  Hence, today's buyer's goal is not to make the best decision, but to avoid exposure to risk.

I think today's marketing automation software aptly equips B2B marketers to adopt relevant B2C tactics, one of which is personalized promotional communications that appeal to the emotional aspects of the purchase.  Use inbound forms to foster 2-way dialogs that result in information capture that reveals something about the individual's thoughts about purchasing solutions for their company.  Face it, it feels more personal when ask about them, not the business.  Use these data, combined with their role and other data to drive dynamic content in your email messages.

You'll still need to focus on the business challenges, but start thinking of your prospects as individuals with human emotions, one of which greatly influences their purchase decisions -- fear. 

I’m traveling to Dallas on Monday to attend an Online Marketing Summit conference.  As that I have never traveled before for any company, this is quite an exciting opportunity for me.  Aprimo is launching a series of whitepapers as part of some of our marketing initiatives.  My job is to collect testimonials from people regarding the changes and mysteries surrounding the world of marketing.  However, I am also supposed to be tweeting during my day in Dallas, both from my personal account and the company’s account. 

Now, I do have a personal twitter account, @reinterz, but I rarely use it.  As big as I am into marketing, I should be much more affluent with twitter.  But, to put it simply, I do not make the time to properly manage all my social media accounts.  In order of importance to me, I have a linkedin page, a facebook page, and a twitter account.  I only have three accounts, and I have trouble managing them!  My inability to track all three accounts led me to ask this question: How does a company manage all of its social media accounts?  Some companies have a youtube channel, flickr account, Wikipedia, a blog, etc, etc.  They must spend hours a day properly managing all of their online channels.  I realize that many companies now have a full-time person devoted to social media, but I’m still interested in hearing from the audience regarding this blog.  How do your companies manage social media?
 

My colleague/boss (when you’re a neophyte, everyone is your boss), Jeff Chamberlain, will be posting a blog soon on mobile marketing.  Mobile marketing is a new term for me, and I find the topic intriguing.  As such, I wanted to share a few of my own thoughts:

There have been multiple marketing fashions in the past 15 years.  Email, Internet, and Social Media marketing each ruled the world at one point, and still do in many ways.  Their value to marketers and consumers alike remains formidable, yet at the same time, I believe the world is changing.  A new force is entering the world; and it’s stronger and shows more potential than any other marketing tool.  This force is mobile marketing and it could become the king of communication.  So, move over LeBron James.  Other Kings deserve a chance in the spotlight.

Here’s why I think it’ll happen.  Unlike television, internet, email, social media, and other sources of mass communication, mobile phones are literally everywhere.  Cell phones outnumber computers 20:1 in sub-saharan Africa. I imagine that the same statistic would probably hold true for parts of Asia, Eastern Europe, Middle East, and South America.  Mobile phones have infiltrated every region and street corner in the world.   Toilet paper hasn’t even been able to accomplish that feat, yet.

With the prevalence of mobile phones, we have the potential to reach consumers that we previously thought unattainable, and we have the ability to increase brand awareness in more parts of the world that we could not reach before.  In essence, the mobile phone creates a new market of consumers.  No other media has been able to create a new market; they simply have allowed easier and better access to existing markets.  Being able to create a new market surely warrants a ‘King’ title, doesn’t it? 

B2B marketing is going through drastic changes with new information and new tools to support nurture or "drip" marketing.  The challenge, however, is the voracious appetite this creates for content in many forms and for many types of buyers.  How can we build and sustain a content engine?  Here's five steps and one bonus thought that should help.

Step 1 – Identify your “thought leadership” messages…what is unique, what is important about the value you provide your customers?