The Marketing Automation Alert

Insightful, fresh marketing technology content today as opposed to “how to” articles. We lead off with reasons why marketing automation may be the wrong choice for you, and then a few unique takes that include an approach to assessing an ad’s creativity, conversion design techniques proven by tests and studies, and a free report on the Social Media Marketing Industry. We’ve also folded in two announcements, one from Google and the other from Pardot. And do you know what B2B trade show attendees REALLY want from exhibitors?

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Featured Marketing Automation Article

When Marketing Automation Is the Wrong Solution - B2B Digital Net

http://sco.lt/7OPJ1V

From b2bdigital.net - Today, 10:09 AM

Marketing automation may be a multi-billion dollar market, but is it the right solution for you?

Condensed...

Here are two situations where marketing automation, with its complexity, learning curve and cost, just isn’t the right solution. Unfortunately, these situations are all too common, even among marketing automation clients.

1. Your Marketing Isn’t Well Established
If you are just building out your first drip email campaign, you can build it in a marketing automation solution but you could also build it in almost any modern email marketing solution. Marketing automation gives you a way to automate your marketing activity with far more complex business rules.

2. You Don’t Have Scale
Automation makes sense when the effort required to automate is less than the effort required to execute manually. You would never consider creating rules with complex branching logic to send a followup email to just one person; you would look at the situation and write only the email needed, when it’s needed. And you would really personalize it to everything you know about the recipient! The interesting question is where is the tradeoff? When does automation actually make sense? In short, it makes sense when you have sufficient scale that an automated solution costs less to manage or delivers a higher return for a similar investment.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

And we'll add to this:

3. You Don't Have Processes in Place

Marketing automation will only make inefficiencies more efficient at being inefficient.

4. There is a communication and lead gen gap between Marketing and Sales

Marketing automation will be money well spent to exacerbate the gap.

Get your ducks in a row. Use the marketing automation research phase to blueprint and implement internal changes before automating.

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Worlds Collide: The New Data-Focused CMOs and Their CIO Counterparts

http://sco.lt/68qgmP

From adage.com - Today, 9:54 AM

How the role of CMO is morphing to embrace technology and partner more closely with CIOs.

Key excerpts...

Marketers should have a plan for IT, said Sheryl Pattek, VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research, adding that CMOs must be involved in vetting technology vendors, historically a job for the CIO that marketers ignored. Marketing execs should "step up and own that infrastructure," she told the audience.

Eduardo Conrado, senior VP-marketing and IT at Motorola Solutions, had his own twist on the evolving relationship between marketing and IT. The former CMO of Motorola Solutions in January was elevated to a role into which marketing and IT report. About 18% to 20% of his company's marketers work in technology these days, said Mr. Conrado.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

As we have often said, the CMO must build its digital capabilities so as not to be usurped by the CIO. The word "embrace" is correct!!!

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How to Assess an Ad's Creativity - HBR

http://sco.lt/8tIXL7

From blogs.hbr.org - Today, 9:38 AM

This test can help you better target your ad investments.

Originality: An original ad comprises elements that are rare, surprising, or move away from the obvious and commonplace. The focal element here is uniqueness of the ideas or features contained in the ad.

Flexibility: Flexibility is seen in an ad's ability to link a product to a range of different uses or ideas.

Elaboration:  Many ads are creative because they contain unexpected details or extend basic ideas so they become more intricate and complicated.

Synthesis: An ad that is creative along this dimension blends normally unrelated objects or ideas.

Artistic Value: Ads with a high level of artistic creativity contain aesthetically appealing verbal, visual or sound elements. Their production quality is high, their dialog is clever, their color palettes is original, or their choice of music is somehow memorable.

Combining elaboration with originality had almost double the average impact of a creative pairing on sales, closely followed by the combination of Artistic Value and Originality (1.89, accounting for 11% of all combos). The weakest combination was flexibility and elaboration, which had less than half the average pairing's impact on sales. Yet we found that in terms of usage there was little difference between them: advertisers did not seem to favor any one combination over the other.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

So damn subjective. Regardless, the question is how can this information be used by the B2B marketer? We think that you may substitute "advertising" with "content marketing" so that the combination of elaboration and originality may have an impact on your demand generation efforts. Having said that, isn't the combination of elaboration and originality really the element of surprise? And isn't surprise one of the marketer's greatest tools? End result: THE TOPICS OF YOUR CONTENT SHOULD ELICIT SURPRISE!

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5 Tested Conversion Design Tactics You Should Put to Work. Right Now. - Unbounce

http://sco.lt/4wyJ85

From unbounce.com - Today, 9:48 AM

You think your design decisions are helping your page convert, right? These 5 case studies show you what to do and more importantly, what NOT to do.

Digest...

That’s why today we’re going to take a look at even more ways to get your design right for high conversions, and all of it is going to be backed with research so you know you’re following sound advice, not just fly-by-night anecdotal evidence.

1. Image Sliders / Carousels Suck, Don’t Use Them

2. The Importance of ‘Closure’ in Online Sales

One sneaky way to improve your onboarding process, and with it your customer retention rates, is to alter your post-sales process to focus on maximum consumer satisfaction. An easy way to do this: recognize that human beings have a natural inclination to seek closure.

3. Summaries Matter on Your Company Blog

Your startup is utilizing the power of content marketing to spur growth on a bootstrapped budget, right? On your company blog, you should know that this study revealed having summaries instead of full blog posts will actually get people to read more of your content.

4. Get Smart with Fitt’s Law

In essence, Fitt’s law is all about understanding the visual hierarchy in human-computer interaction. For instance, you know that it’s common for good interfaces to group items together when they are related, as it makes them easier to use. It would also make sense to give more ‘weight’ (via size or color differences) to REALLY important buttons that get used a lot.

5. The Use of ‘Useless’ Prices

If you’ve followed my work you’ve definitely seen me mention this video by Dan Ariely on useless price points: Many have asked me though, what’s the practical application of this? One answer is found in the ‘classic’ tactic of showing previous prices before the sales drop—while seemingly useless (customers won’t be paying those prices), it helps consumers make decisions when evaluating the product.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Here's what different about Unbounce's posts: they're supported by studies and science. You really must click through to read the details in order to properly implement the recommendations.

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5 hot social media tools - Ragan

http://sco.lt/5aHCXx

From www.ragan.com - Today, 9:07 AM

These platforms can help brand marketers seeking to engage audiences and key online voices, as well as monitoring conversations and other mentions.

Condensed...

Though the perfect solution will vary from brand to brand, here are my five top social media marketing tools:

1. Socialbakers Analytics Pro

2. Simply Measured

3. Brandwatch

4. Commun.it

5. GroupHigh

On a budget? Here are a few social media marketing tools with completely free versions:

1. Wildfire Social Media Monitor
2. SocialBro
3. Social Crawlytics

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Love the fact that the author recommends free tools!

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FREE REPORT: 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report | Social Media Examiner

http://sco.lt/7DPcmX

From www.socialmediaexaminer.com - Today, 9:26 AM

2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report: learn from more than 3000 marketers on how to focus your social media activities and what the rewards are.

Excerpt...

A few of this year’s social media statistics:

• 86% of marketers say social media is important for their business
• 69% plan to increase their use of YouTube
• 58% of marketers are blogging and 62% will increase blogging in 2013
• 49% picked Facebook as the single most important social network
• 89% of marketers state that increased exposure was the most important benefit of social media marketing

iNeoMarketing's insight:

You can also watch a quick video overview of the report here.

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Google Analytics Lets Analytics Premium Users Join Big Data in Google Cloud - Search Engine Watch

http://sco.lt/8ZY1UP

From searchenginewatch.com - Today, 8:02 AM

At Google I/O, Google Analytics introduced a new feature that's quite a big deal to Premium Analytics users. Google is now giving Analytics Premium users the ability to use Google BigQuery to crunch their analytics data and other offline data sets.

Announced at Google I/O 2010, Google BigQuery is a web-based service where you can analyze immensely massive data sets using Google's servers to crunch the numbers. How massive? Up to trillions of rows of data. By using Google's computing power, you can get insights from that kind of big data in seconds, as opposed to hours or days.

Specifically, Google Analytics Premium users can have their unsampled session-level and hit-level analytics data sent directly into Google's BigQuery cloud platform to crunch our all kinds of great information really quickly.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

This is interesting, and perhaps a means by which Marketing can free itself somewhat from the IT infrastructure, pending security issues. If you have a marketing technologist at hand, this is one that you'll want to investigate.

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Google+ in the SERPs Increasing; Authorship Adoption High [Data] - Search Engine Watch

From searchenginewatch.com - Today, 8:14 AM

A new analysis suggests establishing Google authorship has moved past the early adopter stage and those marketers who have not yet established authorship and who are not regularly sharing content on Google+ would be wise to do so.

Digest...

A data analysis of the search results for queries containing 500 of the world's top tech writers' names using Conductor's Searchlight enterprise SEO platform (disclosure: I work for Conductor) – shows that Google is surfacing Google+ accounts for personal brand searches with increased frequency. From January 2012 to May 2013 the percentage of writers that have Google+ results appear on page increased from 33 percent to 43 percent.

The analysis showed almost 75 percent of authors with a Google+ account had linked their content to their profile and their authorship appeared in the SERPs. This high percentage of authors who have gone through one of the two steps to establish authorship suggests the importance to natural search visibility they (or their publishers) now assign Google authorship.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Seriously, do you need further proof? Gettoit!

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ExactTarget Expands Pardot’s B-to-B Marketing Automation to Facebook, Adds New Social Features | EON: Enhanced Online News

http://sco.lt/9DvkrB

From eon.businesswire.com - Today, 7:41 AM

Global cross-channel digital marketing leader ExactTarget (NYSE:ET) extended its Pardot business-to-business marketing automation

Key excerpt...

With Pardot’s integration with ExactTarget’s SocialPages, marketers can drag and drop Pardot’s lead capture connector into their Facebook page and publish it. Customers and prospects who register via the Facebook page can be automatically placed into a lead nurturing program designed to deliver relevant content throughout the buying lifecycle and accelerate the sales process. Pardot’s integration with ExactTarget’s SocialPages works with all native Pardot CRM integrations, including salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics, SugarCRM and Netsuite.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

So at what point does LinkedIn start to move into marketing automation, or vice versa? BTW: gamification just got closer.

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How To Calculate The ROI Of CRM | Forrester Blogs

http://sco.lt/7sUVlJ

From blogs.forrester.com - Today, 7:50 AM

Digest...

The first step is to estimate how investing in a CRM solution will help grow revenues, cut operating costs, and boost IT efficiencies:

•  Power up the revenue engine. 
•  Cut the cost of generating and servicing revenues.
•  Improve IT efficiencies. 

On the cost side of the equation, estimate the costs of software, deployment, maintenance, and support:

• Dig into hardware, software, and subscription costs. 
•  Dissect deployment costs. 
•  Factor in ongoing maintenance costs. 
• Don't get blindsided by administrative and infrastructure costs. 

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Common sense? Yes, but a very nice cheat sheet to start this type of project, so you'll want to click through for details. Sidebar: Forrester clients asking how to calculate the ROI of CRM investment? You would think that there would be 100% adoption by the Forrester community by now.

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B2B Email Marketers Focus on Targeting Content - eMarketer

http://sco.lt/6fP3lB

From www.emarketer.com - Today, 7:17 AM

The tactic B2B email marketers most want to improve on is getting content out to the right segments.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

And we know that this is accomplished via marketing automation.

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What B2B Trade Show Attendees REALLY Want From Exhibitors - Artillery Marketing

http://sco.lt/5kdpqL

From www.artillerymarketing.com - Today, 7:21 AM

The thing a B2B trade show exhibitor can provide attendees that has the highest correlation with purchase intent is new learning.

Key excerpt...

According to a study sponsored by Skyline Exhibits and Marketech 360, the number one reason attendees visited exhibits was to ‘obtain product information.’

As shown in the graphic below, when combining the results of ‘obtaining product information’ (32%), ‘product demo’ (11%) and ‘seeing a rep’ (10%), 53% come to learn about what the exhibitor has that is new.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Events are a personal way to deliver content. Are sales made on the trade show floor? Of course, but if the primary reason for the attendee is to learn, then deliver knowledge that positions you as the expert and drives further conversations and engagements. BTW: best B2B techniques that we've experienced? On show floor classes.

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The Seven Deadly Sins of Email Deliverability [CHECKLIST] - Pardot

http://sco.lt/6Ak6fB

From www.pardot.com - Today, 7:06 AM

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Are People Stealing Your Content? How (and When) to Fight Back - Pardot

http://sco.lt/8dAhVp

From www.slideshare.net - Today, 7:15 AM

Learn how to keep your marketing content safe from internet thieves. For more information, click here: http://bit.ly/ContentTheft

Key excerpt...

With the ever-expanding number of websites in the world, tracking down stolen content isn’t always easy. Here are a couple ways to find it:

• Copyscape: Simply plug your page’s URL into the search box, and voila! Copyscape locates where your content appears elsewhere online.
• Referral Traffic: Dive into your marketing analytics to see which sites are sending you traffic.
• Pingbacks: Depending on your content management system, you may have the ability to be notified whenever a site links back to a post.
• Google Alerts, Topsy, and HubSpot Social Inbox: Whichever tool you prefer, you can set up alerts to ping you when someone mentions your content online.
• Manual Searches: You also have the option of manually searching for your content.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Copyscape is the way to go, as it is the most automated of all solutions. The accompanying article to the deck is far more informative: click through for the details.

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Data-Driven Marketers Report Uptick in Q1 Spending, Revenues - Marketing Charts

http://sco.lt/5wTlNR

From www.marketingcharts.com - Today, 7:02 AM

Data-driven marketing spending is on the rise, according to respondents to the Direct Marketing Association’s Quarterly Business Review covering Q1 2013. 38.7% of respondents indicated that their spending increased quarter-over-quarter, with another 41.9% reporting a steady level of spending. On a 5-point scale, where 5 indicates a significant increase in spend from the prior quarter, data-driven marketers averaged out at a score of 3.19, up from 3.1 in Q4 2012 and 3.16 in Q3. In turn, 45.9% enjoyed revenue increases from their activities for the quarter, with another 39.4% indicating that revenues stayed flat.

Global cross-channel digital marketing leader ExactTarget (NYSE:ET) extended its Pardot business-to-business marketing automation

Key excerpt...

With Pardot’s integration with ExactTarget’s SocialPages, marketers can drag and drop Pardot’s lead capture connector into their Facebook page and publish it. Customers and prospects who register via the Facebook page can be automatically placed into a lead nurturing program designed to deliver relevant content throughout the buying lifecycle and accelerate the sales process. Pardot’s integration with ExactTarget’s SocialPages works with all native Pardot CRM integrations, including salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics, SugarCRM and Netsuite.

Key excerpt...

[There are] five marketing areas comprise the ideal Modern Marketer Scorecard. Out of a possible 100, the general consensus is that marketers rate themselves a 65 in overall Modern Marketing performance, according to the report. While marketers understand how important it is so up the ante on these strategic marketing initiatives, it can be challenging to do so.

Wondering how your efforts stack up? We’ve launched the Modern Marketer Scorecard, a fun way to measure the effectiveness of your marketing mix. The two-question poll gives you the opportunity to benchmark your efforts with your individual ‘Marketer Score’. You also can access to the new Modern Marketing Essentials Library, a place to study up, learn, enhance your strategy, and apply your skills to your team discussions. The Library features strategic content focused on the 5 Tenets of Modern Marketing, as well as Marketer Blueprint worksheets, to help you map out a plan for success with your teams.

Digest...

The first step is to estimate how investing in a CRM solution will help grow revenues, cut operating costs, and boost IT efficiencies:

•  Power up the revenue engine. 
•  Cut the cost of generating and servicing revenues.
•  Improve IT efficiencies. 

On the cost side of the equation, estimate the costs of software, deployment, maintenance, and support:

• Dig into hardware, software, and subscription costs. 
•  Dissect deployment costs. 
•  Factor in ongoing maintenance costs. 
• Don't get blindsided by administrative and infrastructure costs. 

Free stuff today for your immediate use: check out Unbounce’s free ebook, and Eloqua’s free eval against their definition of a modern marketer. Some how to’s are included today, including one of the best articles we’ve read on crafting a value prop. You’ll also want to read one company’s revenue generation methods using LinkedIn Groups, and a surprising announcement from Silverpop.

Receive a daily summary of The Marketing Automation Alert directly to your inbox. Subscribe here (your privacy is protected). If you find this valuable, please share by using the links below:

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Featured Marketing Automation Article

FREE EBOOK: The Ultimate Guide to Conversion Centered Design - Unbounce

http://sco.lt/7eQIl7

From get.unbounce.com - Today, 11:07 AM

Summary...

This 68-page guide will teach you everything you need to know about Conversion Centered Design (CCD) and the critical role that design and psychology play in increasing conversions.

1. CCD vs. UCD
2. The 7 Principles of CCD
3. CTA Design & Page Placement
4. Persuasive Copywriting
5. A/B Testing Your Designs
6. Designing for Mobile Conversion

iNeoMarketing's insight:

GET THIS BOOK!!!!!!

Today is the first day of a week-long series of incredibly valuable information from Unbounce (one of our favorites), and it starts off with this tremendous offer. Trust us when we say you want this book!!

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86 Revealing Charts From the 2013 State of Inbound Marketing Report - HubSpot

http://sco.lt/93LxLN

From www.slideshare.net - Today, 10:58 AM

iNeoMarketing's insight:

And there are 150 tweetable stats to share as well: just click through to the post. We've already scooped this report, but if you haven't review it yet, this deck leaves you with no more excuses!!

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FREE EVAL: Find Out How Your Efforts Stack Up with the Modern Marketer Scorecard - Eloqua

http://sco.lt/6XNNMv

From blog.eloqua.com - Today, 10:54 AM

Key excerpt...

[There are] five marketing areas comprise the ideal Modern Marketer Scorecard. Out of a possible 100, the general consensus is that marketers rate themselves a 65 in overall Modern Marketing performance, according to the report. While marketers understand how important it is so up the ante on these strategic marketing initiatives, it can be challenging to do so.

Wondering how your efforts stack up? We’ve launched the Modern Marketer Scorecard, a fun way to measure the effectiveness of your marketing mix. The two-question poll gives you the opportunity to benchmark your efforts with your individual ‘Marketer Score’. You also can access to the new Modern Marketing Essentials Library, a place to study up, learn, enhance your strategy, and apply your skills to your team discussions. The Library features strategic content focused on the 5 Tenets of Modern Marketing, as well as Marketer Blueprint worksheets, to help you map out a plan for success with your teams.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

You definitely want to do this, then compare and contrast. Very easy, very quick..and fun. See the article first for the definition behind the 5 core competencies. Almost gamification-like.

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Three alternative webinar formats that work | @HeinzMarketing

http://sco.lt/85ey6D

From www.heinzmarketing.com - Today, 10:19 AM

Condensed...

Gone are the days when webinars required complete PowerPoint presentations, or even hours of content prep time….It just means that quality and value for both the audience as well as the presenting company can often be generated with far less work, simply be getting a bit more creative about the format. For example:

• The Group Panel: Pick a topic that’s of value to your intended audience, and invite a handful of experts to come talk about it. Prepare some questions and expectations in advance (come with examples and not just theory, for example), but otherwise find a great moderator and let the conversation drive the value.
• The Moderated Q&A: Pick a good enough expert and you’ll drive attendance from people who want to ask that person their own questions.
• The Double-Box Video Chat: Same idea, slightly different format. Instead of worrying about stock images that represent the topic you’re covering, put the moderator and expert (or panel) right on screen.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Three tremendous alternatives from Matt Heinz to the now-staid .ppt-driven webinar. We've used the Group Panel before, and it drove far greater attendance and engagement.

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Influence marketing: What’s next? - {grow}

http://sco.lt/7l0eO1

From www.businessesgrow.com - Today, 10:06 AM

Traditional media is on the decline and we can now identify "influencers" with relevant content pipelines to help us. Now what do we do about it?

Digest...

There are three social media influencer pipelines available to us today … let’s look at what this means.

• Celebrity: Think in terms of Kim Kardashian and the huge and rapt social media channel she has developed.
• Influencer: Think in terms of a blogger like Chris Brogan who might promote products through their content, including products unrelated to his core business
• Advocate: Think of a content creator who creates passionate videos about their favorite fashions and shopping experiences.

Connections are not established through money, sponsorships, and endless streams of infographics. They only occur through authentic helpfulness and genuine personal connection. This requires a change in approach from “buying space” to “earning hearts:”

• Aim to patiently develop long-term relationships
• Maintain consistent connection — even when you don’t expect anything
• Make a live connection whenever possible. This creates an irreplaceable bond.
• Aim to create a partnership or friendship, not a “target audience”
• Employ scarcity — Make them feel part of something special
• Provide useful content and services built on “trust” not “pay”

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Add this post to the primers on influencer marketing, especially the notion of earning hearts. It sounds contrived, and in a way it is, but perhaps there's an opportunity to build a reciprical business relationship.

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If Gamification Can Make College Fun, Imagine What It Can Do for Your Marketing - Profs

http://sco.lt/82xmMb

From www.mpdailyfix.com - Today, 10:13 AM

Key excerpt...

As you can see, gamification can also work in marketing. Just keep these four things in mind.

1. Identify the behavior(s) you want to modify. Don’t simply use gamification tools to make something more fun; make it more fun with a goal in mind.
2. Know your audience. Every audience has different needs and will respond to certain triggers in different ways. Use a trigger that appeals to your customers and makes sense.
3. Set realistic goals. Goals should be attainable, but they shouldn’t be no-brainers. Folks have to do some work to feel a sense of accomplishment.
4. Recognize and reward. One of the most powerful features of gamification is the social aspect. Ensure that people are rewarded for doing what you want them to do and encourage social sharing of good news. People love to see their names in lights!

So, how can you challenge your customers? How can you give them something that they care deeply enough about to impact a particular behavior? The answer is different for every company, for every customer base, and for every behavior—but gamification can be done in a fun and engaging way. It’s all about finding the right levers to pull!

iNeoMarketing's insight:

A fun article to read, but we think we all get the point regarding gamification. And we truly believe this: gamification is one of the most underutilized tools available to the B2B marketer. We would love to see a gamification function built into CRM or MA, with all behaviors tracked. If you want to claim unused prospect brain cells from your competitors, use gamification.

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Leaner, More Effective Content Marketing in 6 Steps - CMI

http://sco.lt/6M9OaH

From contentmarketinginstitute.com - Today, 9:39 AM

Everyone wants to cut the fat from their work flows. Good news: Applying lean methodology to your efforts is simple, and can result in more effective content marketing. Use these 6 steps to go lean...

Digest...

Lean content marketing is an iterative approach to refining topics, length, and other elements of content to land stronger leads and more customers.

Lean methodology follows the “build-measure-learn” feedback loop. To stay lean, content marketers would create or curate content; collect data on that content; and use the resulting data to shape future pieces of content. As you can see in the chart below, lean startup and content cycles benefit from similar feedback loops — both involve iterating and perfecting as you go.

Six-step Lean Content Marketing program:

1. Define your pain points

2. Start small

3. Measure audience engagement

4. Measure bottom-line impact

5. Push your next iteration

6. Establish a feedback loop

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Looks agile-like to us. We like the approach, and seems to borrow heavily from the agile world (development, marketing). Probably would've gone with Agile Content Marketing. Regardless: small chunks, iterate, measure, improve.

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B2B Lead Blog » How to craft a value proposition in 5 simple steps

http://sco.lt/7RD841

From b2bleadblog.com - Today, 9:47 AM

Condensed...

Before we get started, take moment to download this worksheet to aid your value proposition efforts and let’s get clear on what a value proposition is exactly …According to Austin, there’s a fundamental question every customer wants answered that directly impacts your ability to capture and convert – “If I’m your ideal prospect, why should I buy from you rather than any of your competitors?”

Step #1: Identify the value proposition question

Step #2: Identify potential claims of value

The next step is to list some potential claims of value that answer the primary value proposition question we identified in step one.

Step #3: Rate the appeal and exclusivity for each claim
After you’ve listed some possible claims, rank them from one through five according to their appeal and exclusivity

Step #4: Identify evidentials for your highest-ranked claims

Evidentials are the backbone of your potential claim because they make your claim quantifiable, or as Austin explained, “Once you understand your appeal and exclusivity, you want to begin building supporting credibility with your evidentials.”

Step #5: Combine the highest-ranked claims with supporting evidentials

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Hands-down the smartest article we've seen regarding value prop development. If you're struggling with this, or need to revisit, or SHOULD revisit it, this is your roadmap!!

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Customer Experience Matrix: Silverpop Announces Universal Behaviors to Provide Better Cross Channel Customer Experience

http://sco.lt/7rO4iP

From customerexperiencematrix.blogspot.com - Today, 8:16 AM

Key excerpt...

Silverpop’s new features load customer behaviors from all sources into a central database, match identities to create a unified customer view, and make the resulting information available for real-time, automated interactions across all channels. The central database and cross-channel treatments are two of the three capabilities I’ve defined for a Customer Data Platform. Silverpop falls short on the third CDP function, which is integrated predictive modeling.  But it has partners who fill that gap.

Many CDPs have been quietly maturing for several years.  Silverpop's two-year gestation cycle is a good example.  I can't say precisely why so many are emerging more or less simultaneously, but suspect a combination of business conditions and ever-more-urgent marketer needs.  The long-term drivers are clear: more marketing channels make customer attention harder to attract, spread behavior across different media, and require coordinated contacts across channels. As a result, marketers need a unified customer database, unified campaigns, and way to deliver messages across whatever channels customers use now or in the future. This is what they get from a CDP.

It’s less surprising to see another CDP system than to see it coming from Silverpop.  After all, Silverpop’s twin heritages in B2C email and B2B marketing automation both use simple data models: flat lists for email and basic lead/contact/account tables for B2B marketing automation. Both types of systems traditionally merge customer data using only email address.  Neither build a company's primary marketing database or shares data with external systems. So its quite unexpected to see Silverpop ingest data from any source, cross-reference any set of individual identifiers, offer access to the data, and send messages for delivery by other systems.

iNeoMarketing's insight:

We scooped this last week, and we completely agree with David Raab: did not expect to see Silverpop as the first one out of the chute to offer this. It's a game changer for them, and puts everyone else in the MAP space on the defensive. Impressive.

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How to Get 58% of Your Revenue Via LinkedIn Groups - Jill Konrath

http://sco.lt/8sPqjp

From www.jillkonrath.com - Today, 9:27 AM

Find out how one top sellers uses LinkedIn groups to consistently generate high quality leads.

Summary...

Here are some of our core business growth strategies on LinkedIn:

• We’re “Groupies.” Having a very defined target market allows us to pinpoint LinkedIn groups that our targeted decision makers would likely belong to.
• We’re “Go-Givers.”
• We Get Personal.
• We Shake Things Up.
• We Invest Time.
• Also, so many people forget the definition of social.
• Our sales funnel never ever leaks!

iNeoMarketing's insight:

Great post! If you want to use LI Groups to drive revenue, this is a must read!

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[INFOGRAPHIC] The Perfect Data Storm | Qualcomm Spark

http://sco.lt/8gPTLV

From visual.ly - Today, 8:01 AM

This infographic provides a deeper look into the digital deluge that is coming.

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Show Your Clients (or Your Boss) the Value of Facebook [INFOGRAPHIC] - SociallyStacked

http://sco.lt/54alHd

From www.sociallystacked.com - Today, 7:58 AM

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The State of Digital Content [Infographic] - Profs

http://sco.lt/5MttAn

From www.marketingprofs.com - Today, 7:56 AM

Content - In light of the increasing popularity of digital devices, video, and social networks, how has digital content readership changed? To answer that question, Uberflip researched key usage data from February ...

Condensed...

Gone are the days when webinars required complete PowerPoint presentations, or even hours of content prep time….It just means that quality and value for both the audience as well as the presenting company can often be generated with far less work, simply be getting a bit more creative about the format. For example:

• The Group Panel: Pick a topic that’s of value to your intended audience, and invite a handful of experts to come talk about it. Prepare some questions and expectations in advance (come with examples and not just theory, for example), but otherwise find a great moderator and let the conversation drive the value.
• The Moderated Q&A: Pick a good enough expert and you’ll drive attendance from people who want to ask that person their own questions.
• The Double-Box Video Chat: Same idea, slightly different format. Instead of worrying about stock images that represent the topic you’re covering, put the moderator and expert (or panel) right on screen.