The CMO Council just released its annual outlook for Marketing, based on insights from 825 senior marketers. I'm proud to say that this year's report was sponsored by Marketo as well as Deloitte Consulting LLP.
I'm here at the MarketingSherpa B2B Demand Generation Summit in Boston. The opening session was by Sean Donahue, Senior Editor for B-to-B Marketing at MarketingSherpa. In it, he shared the top five challenges faced by B2B marketers. I was especially intrigued by challenges 3, 4, and 5.
1. The Growing Committee
Marketo is one of the sponsors of salesforce.com's global User and Developer Conference, Dreamforce 2007. One of the first sessions was titled "Bridging the Sales and Marketing Divide", and not surprisingly, the focus was how to break down the barriers between Sales and Marketing by automating the lead development / lead nurturing process.
According to MarketingSherpa’s Business Technology Marketing Benchmark Guide 2007-08, 80% of decision makers who made a technology purchase believe that they found the vendor – as opposed to the vendor targeting them.
If want to make Google richer without making any money yourself, then stop reading. You don't need to worry about conversion rates or landing pages. But if you want to grow your own revenue using search engine marketing, then you must pay attention to converting your clicks into leads.
I came across some awesome benchmark data about B2B marketing budgets, courtesy of SiriusDecisions. (If you are not familiar with SiriusDecisions, you should be -- they are doing some of the best research available on B2B marketing and sales.)
My new article "Four Steps to Better Business Leads From Search" is now available as part of Search Engine Land's Strictly Business column, which covers topics related to B2B search marketing.
Content is critical for lead nurturing. Whether it is a case study, new research on some aspect of your industry, a how-to guide, or a whitepaper, content is what makes your lead nurturing programs work – and lead nurturing is what helps marketing drive more revenue to sales.
Strewn around my house are pens, coffee cups, calculators, USB memory sticks, and assorted swag from various companies I've met over the years. What is the purpose of all this stuff? Does having a leather portfolio with a vendor's logo on it make me more likely to buy their products?
I just published a new article, called "The 5 Secrets PPC Agencies Don't Want You to Know". This article is part of Search Engine Land's new Strictly Business column, which covers topics related to B2B search marketing.
