The email campaign below from Integra, a regional provider of business voice and data solutions based in Vancouver, Washington, gets high marks for promoting content – in this case, a “buyer’s guide” – but on all other counts, the email reads like the opening to a term paper, not the… Read More
Tag Archives: b2b demand generation
Sorry, But “How Many Touches Does it Take to Make a Sale?” is No Longer a Valid Question
On a recent conference call with a prospective client, the Vice President of Sales chimed in with a question: “How many touches do you think it takes before someone becomes a lead?” In the most diplomatic tone I could muster, I responded by stating that I didn’t think there was… Read More
Forrester thinks Content Marketing Isn’t Working – They’re Half Right
Over at Forrester Research, Vice President Laura Ramos recently talked to Advertising Age (“Marketers Still Struggling to Get Results from Content Marketing“) about what she perceives as a general lack of return from the investment so many companies are making in content marketing. It’s a fair characterization to say that… Read More
5 Common Content Syndication Mistakes
Though it predates what we think of today as “content marketing,” content syndication is still a cornerstone of many B2B companies’ demand generation strategies. Like other inbound marketing programs – search, social media, and the like – content syndication is one more way to increase the chances that a qualified… Read More
Design Choices & More Sink Webinar Invitation
I wrote recently in this space about the decisions that today’s B2B email marketers are facing as they strive to ensure that their campaigns are optimized for an increasingly mobile audience. The Webinar invitation below from Janrain, a software company in Portland, Oregon, illustrates some of the perils inherent in… Read More
In Defense of Unsolicited Email
Over at marketing automation firm Marketo, CEO Phil Fernandez just wrote a full-throated rant against the evils of unsolicited email and purchased email lists used indiscriminately: “How does anyone think that these are sensible emails to send to the CEO of a fast-growing public company? Do they really think that… Read More
How the Answer to One Question Can Tell You How to Market Your Technology
One of the first questions I ask any prospective technology client is the following: “Imagine your product on a spectrum. At one end of that spectrum are commodity products – CRM, for example – people know these products exist, they understand the problem that the products solve, and they recognize… Read More