First Have Something to Say: Simple Marketing for Complex Marketing Automation

Listening with can

Psst… want to know a secret?  Marketing is simple.  Any marketer should be forced to explain their company’s value proposition in less than five words, and have it be compelling. Because that’s all marketing is: being concise and compelling, but recognizing that not everyone reacts to the same message.  The tough part is determining who will [...]

Marketo’s Small Business ‘Spark’

Sparklogo

Earlier this month Marketo launched a marketing automation suite designed for small businesses called Spark.  Starting at $750 per month this appears to be Marketo’s answer to less expensive competitors like Pardot, Genius, and Hubspot. Spark is built on the same technology platform that runs Marketo’s 1,300 customers and features include… Email Marketing: Spark enables [...]

Brian Kardon Interview with Marketing Automation Times

Brian Kardon, Eloqua CMO

We had a chance to catch up with Brian E. Kardon, Eloqua’s Chief Marketing Officer at Dreamforce 2011. Brian is responsible for Eloqua’s global marketing and brand strategy, demand generation, and communications. Before joining Eloqua, Brian was Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Forrester Research, where he helped to more than double the business in less [...]

Marketing Automation Renovation — Why Your Funnel is Leaky and What It’s Costing Your Business

justin-gray-headshot1

We’ve all seen the funnel diagram. It’s a beautiful progressive graphic that seems to pull prospects down the rabbit hole, closer and closer to big money in all of our pockets.  It’s a nice visual, and it’s even fairly easy to setup in a marketing automation platform.  Leads exhibit certain behaviors and as sales representatives [...]

Mapping to the Buying Cycle

Buying-Cycle

Here is an interesting video created by Hot To Trot Marketing called Mapping to the Buying Cycle. The video reviews five stages in the buying cycle and types of communication vehicles to reach the audience.

Dan McDade of PointClear on The Marketing Automation Podcast

Dan McDade, PointClear

Our guest for this episode of the Marketing Automation Podcast is Dan McDade, President and CEO of PointClear. Dan founded PointClear in 1997 with the mission to be the first and best company providing prospect development services to business-to-business companies with complex sales processes.  In addition to serving as president and CEO of PointClear, Dan is [...]

Hubspot Purchases Performable

HubSpot has expanded the functionality of it’s ‘inbound marketing software’ by acquiring Performable . The acquisition is intended to expand the functionality of HubSpot’s platform, and enhance its customers’ ability to turn more visitors into leads and customers. According to HubSpot, “The acquisition brings sophisticated ‘middle of the funnel’ marketing functionality to the HubSpot platform, meaning [...]

Greg Head from Infusionsoft on The Marketing Automation Podcast

Greg Head from Infusionsoft

Our guest for this episode of the Marketing Automation Podcast is Greg Head, Chief Marketing Officer for Infusionsoft. Greg has a successful history in the software business with a track record of creating winning products, brands and businesses. For over 15 years, Greg helped grow the ACT! contact management and SalesLogix CRM businesses from startups [...]

Move From the Marketing Funnel to the Marketing Hourglass

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John Jantsch does an excellent job in simplifying marketing jargon for the common man and his recent blog post completely reshapes the commonly referenced ‘marketing funnel’ into a ‘marketing hourglass’. Jantsch’s definition of marketing is ‘getting someone with a need to KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST you.  He has now expanded this idea to a concept [...]

Plan Before Purchasing Marketing Automation

LeadLife blogger, Lisa Cramer, writes an interesting post about planning a marketing automation campaign in 5 Places Marketing Automation Will Affect Your Current Process.  Here is a different business process she thinks need to be understood before implementing a marketing automation solution… Lead Capture. The point at which you capture leads and how you capture [...]