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Here are several excerpts from an excellent post by David Baker, VP of eCRM Solutions at Razorfish, Where Is Marketing Automation Going?:
Today we have a wide variety of options to support email marketing and service functions for our companies. I typically categorize these email companies into four categories: small business, specialty applications, enterprise solutions and then marketing automation.
Sometimes I think that traditional offline marketers look at the Internet like the title character of some monster movie–the Internet is the thing that ate marketing. It doesn’t have to be that way. Sure, things are changing for those of us that have worked in marketing for some time, but it doesn’t mean that everything you know is wrong. Internet marketing is still marketing, and what you know is still true. You just need to apply what you know to a different situation than before. Sometimes I wonder whether it is we experts that bring these fears about, starting with how we portray the changes that the Internet has brought to marketing.
For anyone who’s joined and had success in the Internet Marketing world, there are likely a great number of things you have learned over the years that allow you to be successful today.
This list is compiled from my own experience with Internet marketing, it consists of the top 5 lessons I’ve learned in 3 areas of Internet Marketing that I believe are essential to success.
I realized that I never posted my slides from last week’s Dallas Inbound Marketing Summit. I’d only tweeted them to my Twitter followers. So, today, I am posting a longer version of those slides, called Internet Marketing by the Numbers, but I also want to tell you something about those slides.
They make my phone ring a lot, with so many companies struggling to measure their marketing in terms of sales, all because they sell offline. (more…)
Having spent the last few days in Dallas I am ready to go home. Don’t get me wrong. Dallas is a nice town. The Inbound Marketing Summit put on by New Marketing Labs’ Chris Brogan was great. Here’s why I need to get out, though.
You see, I am a New York Giants fan. Although I only told one person on my entire trip of this fact, I suspect that Dallas Cowboys fans have some powerful social network that is at work behind the scenes. They know I am a Giants fan and they don’t like it. My plane can’t get off the ground fast enough. It’s not safe here for people like me. (more…)
The benefit from a firm grasp of social media for companies is impossible to ignore. Whether you work in marketing, advertising, public relations or interactive, there are distinct competitive advantages for both individuals and businesses from a better understanding of the social web.
This post provides specific advice from in-house social media marketers including: Dell, Comcast, HP, Wells Fargo, Intel, Best Buy, General Mills, Ford, UPS, Home Depot, Cirque du Soleil and a mix of SMM consultants/agencies: Altimeter Group, Crayon, Ogilvy 360, Future Works, Doe Anderson, New Marketing Labs and others. Advice includes justifying investment in social media, strategy, how to decide on tactics and measuring success. (more…)
I’ll be up front on this one. I am not a fan of the NBA anymore. I am, however, very quick to borrow their 24 second clock for an analogy. You see one thing that is rewarded in the pro game is getting an offensive rebound. When you get an offensive rebound you are awarded a “fresh 24″. The 24 second clock resets and you now have another chance at getting some points. (more…)
It appears that lack of existing customer insight and the tools to leverage that insight is creating a revenue roadblock for many marketers.
Despite the critical need to leverage current customer knowledge, especially during this recessionary period, many marketers are throwing up their own obstacles to reaching solid, ready-and-waiting opportunities.
Instead of concentrating on and maximizing their existing customer potential, too many marketers are spending their limited resources on acquiring new customers, while allowing their existing customers to fall by the roadside. What a huge waste. (more…)
Clay Shirky’s latest essay, that encourages us to ‘think the unthinkable’, set me wondering about what the marketing industry could be like. The part of Shirky’s ‘unthinkable scenario’ that leapt out for me was the suggestion that, ‘people would resist being educated to act against their own desires’.
Shirky is, of course, saying that one effect of a networked world is that people have less faith in the lessons being handed out on Madison Avenue. Now it’s quite clear that media is still the dominant force in the brand and marketing business, which despite tough times, remains a trillion dollar global industry. (more…)
Internet marketing and the SMB can be a powerful match. The Internet and its many channels (search, blogs, social media and more) can create opportunity that was not possible for many businesses just a few short years ago. Internet savvy marketers and business owners see the potential to bring leads to their business that would have never been fathomed in the old world of call lists and caffeine.
While this brave new world is made available to any business that has the initiative and patience to make it work for them there is one rather old school principle that has become more important than ever: selling. (more…)