Category Archives: Creative

7 Lead Gen Techniques I Learned From My Junk Mail

Sometimes it pays to look outside your normal circle of peers for inspiration. Here’s a postcard I received recently from the Washington State Department of Fish & Wildlife. What do fishing licenses have to do with B2B demand generation? Not much. But the very fundamental direct marketing principles on display here (beautifully executed, I might [...]

VMware Uses CDI to Drive Sales Performance

Like many other Silicon Valley companies, VMware, a global leader in virtualization technology, hosts a high-profile, invitation-only “sales club” event each year to reward members of their sales team who attain specific performance milestones. Attending “Club” is a badge of distinction for the 300 reps who qualify, and a unique reward for the individuals and [...]

SAP E-Mail Needs a Dose of “Operational Excellence”

A few weeks back I savaged a Webinar invitation from Oracle, so it seems only fair that I critique an e-mail recently received from one of Oracle’s main competitors, SAP. Oracle’s e-mail was ostensibly promoting an event; the SAP campaign is promoting … well, I’m not really sure. That’s because it contains three (3) distinct [...]

Lipstick, Pigs & Lead Generation

This guest post comes courtesy of Dave Dumanis, CDI Creative Director. Thanks Dave! There’s been a lot of talk in the news lately about putting cosmetics on farm animals. Naturally, this made me think of lead generation. No connection, you say? Consider this: Most lead generation campaigns are just internal strategy or positioning statements with [...]

Oracle Webinar Invitation Needs More Detail, Less Fluff

Most of the discussion these days on how to improve e-mail response centers on technical issues such as deliverability, spam filters, and readability on mobile e-mail clients. It’s easy to forget, therefore, that the true keys to e-mail success are often none of the above, but rather more old-fashioned principles relating to message and offer. [...]