Technology News: Marketing Automation

Creating Exceptional Customer Experiences, Both Coming and Going
November 16, 2009

One of the most important ways marketers can differentiate their offerings in today's unique selling environment is by creating a remarkable customer experience. One step toward achieving this goal is to ensure they have a single database that is tightly integrated with their CRM system to capture inbound and outbound dialogue and create a multidimensional marketing view of the customer.

Finding Out What They're Saying About You Is Worth Every Penny
November 12, 2009

Social media monitoring is a new business endeavor, with relatively few companies able to boast a significant track record of achievement. In fact, according to the new Aberdeen benchmark report, "The ROI on Social Media Monitoring," only 27 percent of Best-in-Class companies have engaged in social media monitoring activities for more than two years.

B2B TeleServices: Bring the Right Intel to the Table
October 29, 2009

In research conducted among over 200 companies in 2008 for a reported titled "B2B TeleServices and Appointment-Setting: Less Risk, Less Reward?," Aberdeen Group found that end-user sales organizations relying primarily on external appointment-setting vendors for lead generation realized dramatically lower business results if the vendor deliverable was limited to simple appointments.

SFA May Be Mature, but It's About to Have a Growth Spurt
October 26, 2009

Sales force automation -- nimble, lightweight and usually mobile -- seems to have little in common with its staid parent, enterprise resource planning. Until you consider this: After years of widespread adoption, SFA has also become mature -- but in its own way. Yet the space is not remaining static.

Leveraging Social Media to Boost E-Commerce Holiday Sales
October 21, 2009

Word of mouth has long been a priceless asset to any business, and technology has expanded the playing field in a whole new way with mobile messaging and social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and more. Every day, it seems hard to avoid the buzz about social media -- who's on it, what they're doing and what the latest trend is.

The Data-Driven Marketer: Show Me the Numbers
October 15, 2009

The role of the chief marketing officer has evolved dramatically over the last 10 years. The average CMO is on the job for just 23.6 months. The CEO and board of directors are demanding a new level of accountability from senior marketing leaders, which requires tangible justification for marketing decisions.

Continuous Intelligence: Where Message Meets Moment
October 06, 2009

Online measurement has become increasingly focused on the integration of online behavior with customer marketing touch-points. Taking a complete view of the customer acquisition life cycle will often generate numerous potential integration points that can be profitably exploited. The goal of every marketing organization should be to achieve consistent relevance around both "message" and "moment."

Marketing Automation: A Well-Oiled Machine That's Ready to Roll
October 05, 2009

The announcement that Adobe was acquiring Web analytics firm Omniture took many in the marketing industry off guard last month. However, it's less surprising in view of trends that have recently been gaining traction: integration of social media technologies to mainstream platforms; mergers and acquisitions in general; a surge in demand for marketing technology.

Mzinga Puts the Community Platform Puzzle Pieces Together
September 25, 2009

Mzinga, a player in the evolving community platform space, has relaunched its flagship offering with a product that integrates many of its internally developed features with acquired technologies. The new platform, called "OmniSocial," provides external and internal communication and collaboration tools for human resources, customer support and marketing.

Dialing Into Mobile Marketing
September 24, 2009

Mobile marketing has at last emerged as an important part of the marketing mix. Through a confluence of technologies and standards related to mobile devices, including 3G networks and data packages, the mobile channel can now enable large-scale marketing activities capable of engaging consumers in unprecedented ways.

The 'Flat Funnel' Marketing Myth
September 04, 2009

The concept of "the funnel" is a sacred cow in marketing. The basic concept of leads progressing through a series of steps of escalating interaction until they finally make a purchase is intuitive. At the macro level, it is fairly easy to model the funnel and assign labels to each step. However, the model's accuracy decays rapidly when marketers cut each step into ever smaller slices.

Building a Leak-Proof Sales Pipeline
August 20, 2009

In November 2008, Aberdeen published a study titled, "Lead Nurturing: The Secret to Successful Lead Generation." The survey captured the challenges and strategies from 213 organizations and found that on average, 16 percent of the total leads that are deemed "sales-ready opportunities" actually close. That's a fairly alarming number.

Sales Evolution in a High-Risk Economy
August 18, 2009

These days it's hard to have a conversation that doesn't eventually roll around to the state of THE ECONOMY. What's amazing is that, at this point, no one needs to use adjectives when they refer to THE ECONOMY. We've stopped bothering with words like "bad," "down" or "tough." We all know how things are, and we all know that we don't have a lot of control over when things are going to get better.

Revenue Without Borders: How to Fix the Sales and Marketing Cycle
July 30, 2009

Today's revenue cycle is broken. Sales reps spend half their time cold-calling leads instead of interacting with interested prospects, while marketing invests its shrinking budget on costly programs and prospect lists that yield low conversion rates. The two departments seemingly operate in separate silos, interacting only when a lead is handed off from marketing to sales.

The Neverending Quest for Qualified Leads
July 28, 2009

In the past, businesses typically used lists of leads in a type of marketing strategy that Michael Port, author of "Book Yourself Solid," refers to as "interruption marketing." The goal was to get in front of a potential customer, book an appointment, and sell the product. However, that model is changing into "permission marketing."

Efficiency Through Outsourced Marketing: Q&A With Quaero Founder Naras Eechambadi
July 27, 2009

It may seem that CSG Systems, a provider of customer interaction and billing management software, acquired marketing company Quaero in the nick of time. The deal was announced at the end of the year -- just as it was becoming painfully clear that the recession was likely to be much deeper than initially feared.