15 May |
How I Disappointed a CEO |
— Because he did not like what I told him he should do or have done months ago Last week I had lunch with the CEO of a Information Technology company. We met at a fine dining Japanese restaurant in downtown Toronto. Being a true blue foodie, I have in my mind a single test for the quality of food at a Japanese restaurant. So I always order deep-fried, soft shell crab. There are a few very important criteria the dish must meet. The crab must be just the right size—not too big, not too small; must have the right amount of batter, should be well-tempered. Overall, it must taste DIVINE. And
Read more...Published Date: 15 May 2012
Category: Account Mapping, Appointment Setting, Channel Marketing, Demand Generation, Lead Generation, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Lead Qualification, Leadership, Sales Funnel, Sales Leads
Tags: account mapping, demand generation strategy, increase conversion, lead generation process, lead pipeline, list hygiene, marketing mix, social media effectiveness, social media for B2B
09 May |
“Business Has Only Two Functions—Marketing and Innovation” |
The words of wisdom I quote in the headline above are from Milan Kundera, Czech novelist, playwright and poet. To my mind, the man is a genius! For truly, if you cannot be innovative, you have no business being a marketer. The most apt definition of innovation that I could find says, “Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are ACCEPTED by markets, governments, and society.” The keyword here is “accepted” and acceptance comes from arousing interest and creating engagement. As far back as the early 1900s,
Read more...Published Date: 09 May 2012
Category: Brand Marketing Strategy, Demand Generation, Digital Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Lead Generation, Leadership, Technology Innovation
Tags: B2B marketer, b2b marketing, Big Data, conversion, creating engagement, innovation
01 May |
Are you the BEST—Who Cares? How to avoid being lost in the crowd and drowned by the marketing noise |
Do you remember the Avis Car Rental advertising campaign in the early sixties? The one that said “We Are Number Two But We Try Harder”? The company still uses the “We Try Harder” part of that tagline. The campaign put Avis back in the black after being in the red for over a decade. This is a classic example of a winning brand positioning strategy where the company is truthful (that they are not number one, but number two) and yet makes a compelling statement of why customers should choose them over other players (because “we try harder”). Why am I bringing this legendary
Read more...Published Date: 01 May 2012
Category: Demand Generation, Inbound Marketing, Lead Generation
Tags: B2B lead generation strategy, b2b marketing, content marketing, demand generation, fundamentals of marketing, online marketing, Social Media
24 Apr |
B2B Inbound Marketing Using Social Media |
A Universal Strategy or a Golden Hammer? “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” That’s the concept of Maslow’s golden hammer. And it came to my mind as I read a recent case study of enterprise cloud computing company, Salesforce.com. I was asked by one of my peers to comment on the case study because apparently, it looked like someone had found the “secret sauce” for B2B inbound marketing using social media. Plus, when an article carries in its title, “#Social Success…” and talks of inbound
Read more...Published Date: 24 Apr 2012
Category: Demand Generation, Digital Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Lead Generation, Sales Funnel, Social Media
Tags: B2B inbound marketing, content strategy, conversion rate, lead generation process, social media case study
17 Apr |
10 Rules of Lead Generation |
Proven Steps for B2B Marketers to Secure, Engage and Convert Quality Leads In the world of marketing, we all live in relentless pursuit of finding more prospects and converting more customers. Now here’s a recent study that declares “on average, 57% of a purchase decision is complete before a customer contacts a supplier.” Given the statistic mentioned and show in the chart above, it really should be quite simple to convert these prospects into customers. As B2B marketers, the only task remaining for us would be to run through the rest of the sales cycle and fill that 43% gap
Read more...Published Date: 17 Apr 2012
Category: Demand Generation, Lead Generation
Tags: b2b marketing, integrated marketing, Lead Conversion, Lead Generation, lead nurturing
11 Apr |
Inbound Vs. Outbound—An Ongoing Debate |
But what do B2B Marketers Really Need for Sales Funnel Optimization? BALANCE. A simple, one-word answer to the question. Just like the classic “which came first, the chicken or the egg” question, the debate over “which works better, inbound or outbound marketing” rages on. Now with the chicken and the egg, it really doesn’t matter what answer you choose. In fact, I would say, as long as they are both made of chocolate, who cares? (I’m still “high” on all the chocolate eggs, marshmallow chicks and fudgy bunnies from this past Easter weekend.) I really have no problem with
Read more...Published Date: 11 Apr 2012
Category: Demand Generation, Inbound Marketing, Lead Funnel, Lead Generation
Tags: b2b marketing, cost per lead, demand generation, inbound marketing, outbound marketing
04 Apr |
ALEA’s SEO Journey—Strategies that Worked for Us |
Lessons from the B2B Internet Marketing Trenches I’m a self-professed “foodie”—passionate about tasting new cuisine styles, adventurous about experimenting with everything, from Sushi to barbecues to Tapas, and totally unabashed with my zany streak when it comes to gastronomic delights. Now that’s fairly easy to do, and definitely low-risk if you always have a good digestive or a nice bottle of Angostura bitters. In business and marketing, on the other hand, I am certainly a lot more cautious. I observe, I analyze, I try out, I test, I measure and only then do I commit to
Read more...Published Date: 04 Apr 2012
Category: Demand Generation, Inbound Marketing, Lead Generation, SEO
Tags: b2b marketing, Internet marketing, Lead Generation, SEO strategy, SEO techniques, social media strategy
27 Mar |
B2B Marketers on Pins-And-Needles…What’s All This Anxiety about Pinterest? |
10 Ways to Leverage Pinterest for B2B Marketing At a recent B2B networking, the conversation steered naturally to current trends in the B2B marketing world. I heard the usual chants of “our Facebook marketing is really picking up and our fan count went up x times in the first quarter of 2012”; “we answered x no. of questions on LinkedIn this month”; “I made x new connections this week”; and so on. Of course, I waited to hear some words of wisdom like maybe, “our lead to sale conversion ratio went up x times this quarter”; or “marketing contributed x percentage to our
Read more...Published Date: 27 Mar 2012
Category: Demand Generation, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, Social Media
Tags: b2b marketing, content sharing, demand generation, Pinterest, social media tools
20 Mar |
Social Media Bullet—“Fire-and-Forget” or “A Guided Missile”? |
CMO Survey February 2012 Follows Marketplace Dynamics and Trends It’s done, it’s a given; the social media bullet has been fired. The question is, does it have a real target or is it another hand grenade tossed mindlessly to create some sort of marketing explosion? Okay, so if I’m sounding like some sort of weapon and ammunition expert, I’m not one and I don’t have any interest in war. BUT, from all that I am observing around me, I definitely think there are far too many bullets flying around in the social media marketing space. That’s a lot of resources being burned away and I
Read more...Published Date: 20 Mar 2012
Category: Brand Marketing Strategy, Channel Marketing, Demand Generation, Digital Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Lead Funnel, Lead Generation, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Lead Qualification, Leadership, Sales Funnel, Social Media, Technology Innovation
Tags: CMO survey, demand generation, marketing budgets, social media marketing
13 Mar |
More Social Conversations, Not Social Broadcasts…Please |
Of all the social networking tools out there, LinkedIn appears to be the one most favoured in the world of business. And I can see why—the stated purpose of LinkedIn is to “exchange information, ideas and opportunities”. I think that’s a very solid reason for business professionals to use it. The problem is many users stray very far from this purpose to use LinkedIn as a social broadcast medium rather than to engage in meaningful conversations and nurture relationships. I am careful about inviting or accepting an invitation on LinkedIn; much the same way as I would do in the offline
Read more...Published Date: 13 Mar 2012
Category: Demand Generation, Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Social Media
Tags: Lead Generation, LinkedIn, sales cycle, social media tools, social networking
