Email or Social...is it either or??

Tuesday, November 3, 2009 by Jeff Chamberlain

Well I'm finally starting to see some of the hype subside on social marketing.  I don't want to imply that I don't see great potential for social marketing.  I just wish we didn't have to go through these euphoric hype cycles on every new concept.  Twitter is great, but only as great as the ability for everyone to get the right people to follow you and for you and everyone else to put the time into keeping it up to date.  So, perhaps the death of email marketing has been somewhat overstated. 

The good thing about social marketing (other than social marketing itself) is that it will make email marketing better.  I think most of the filters have advanced to get most of the spam out of the way.  Now, we can focus on getting the legitimate email marketers to do a better job of targeting and personalizing their email.  This will take some technology, but just as important, it will take some conviction and improved processes to support the use of the technology.

Social Media tools will continue to evolve and continue to provide a new means for connecting with customers and prospects.  But, this will force email marketing software providers to improve their tools and email marketing professionals to get better at building emails that are relevant and targeted. Nothing happens as quickly as prognosticated and usually not the way they suggest.  Emails not getting older...it's getting better!
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One logical first step into social media

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 by Jeff Chamberlain
Everyone is talking about social media tools and their impact on marketing.  Marketers are flocking to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube at an incredible rate.  I get an offer for a new webinar, white paper or article on social media tools at least once a day.  I've seen a lot of advice on how to use it, how to meaure it, but not a lot on how to get started.  So, here's my thoughts as we have gotten through our initial steps into social media marketing.

Start a blog. 

Why blogging?

The new mantra is content.  In the old marketing, we pushed our message out to everyone and, in the old days, you could get people to listen.  So, content was aligned 1:1 with your campaign plans.  In this new world of marketing, you need to have content available that is relevant to the individual AND available where they look for it.  This will liikely start with organic search.  Your position in organic search is driven by how much fresh, relevant content you have out there.  Blogging is the best way there is to drive fresh, relevant content.  You aren't strapped by a navigation structure that is built into your website.  You can just talk about the latest issues.  In addition, you can dedicate different blogs to different terminology so it is relevant to different audiences (e.g. industries or roles).

Your challenge with blogging is to coordinate an effort across your company so you can be sure you are covering all the key search terms and providing relevant content.  We, fortunately, have tackled this with our own product, Aprimo Marketing Studio, and are finding it to be a great way to get started.  So, while we are blogging to communicate with the world, we are doing it purposefully so the world will actually find us as a result.  It doesn't do any good to blog if nobody finds you.
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Interactive Marketing can Lead to Interpersonal Experiences

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 by Barbara Kovacs

Ok, so my core compentency is NOT marketing.   It's sales.  And I have never, ever worked in any other capacity for a marketing professional software company until now.  In my opinion marketing has always been behind the car, not  the wheel, when it comes to generating quality leads for sales people.  Can I get an Amen on that?  

My dad had always said that the best way to ensure getting the job done right is doing it yourself and when it comes to finding viable opportunities in the market place I have always depended on....yours truly.  However, with the onslaught of new technologies and forms of communication getting more and more fragmented, (text me....google me...find me on facebook...you know all the social media tools out there!) I have had to retool my strategy of finding great leads by adding in the mix one of my old true blue favorites....the phone.

Yes, at Aprimo, we are a fully integrated marketing powerhouse. At the end of the day, the one-on-one relationship over the phone is what often times drives our understanding of what kind of information we need to present and when we need to present it to our prospects, online.

The key to success in the B2B lead/demand generation sphere is knowing who you are trying to reach - meaning that their job title is not necessarily an indicator of what they do and there are many sources to assist you in doing a quick search....which I will go into later.  Most importantly, when you reach out to someone via the phone, make your message a quick and succinct touchpoint that gives them a compelling reason to either speak to you then or return your call if you have to leave a voicemail.

The great part about using the phone is that based on the dialog you can quickly collect information that can be used in your CRM to market back to your prospects and most importantly you can gain their permission to stay in touch.  By the way, does your company demand it's sales reps to use the CRM? Ours doesn't, and it seems to really affect how we deal with our prospects.

Creating excitement for your website and having people download whitepapers, case studies, podcasts or webinars is great. What further compliments the online experience is the personal interaction that provides you a better understanding of your prospect -through tone and inflection - this affords you insights into their interests relative to your offerings. 

So, what do you use to compel your prospects to continue to stay in touch with your organization?
....

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