Success Factors for Marketing Automation

April 28, 2011

For­rester has iden­ti­fied the key fac­tors that are most likely to spell suc­cess or fail­ure when it comes to imple­ment­ing B2B mar­ket­ing automa­tion plat­forms (report pub­lished April 2011). Com­pa­nies that rush to imple­ment with­out the right con­tent or agreed-upon processes are unlikely to achieve sat­is­fac­tory pay­back from their invest­ment in mar­ket­ing automa­tion. For­rester cau­tions that […]

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Reasserting Marketing Leadership

April 13, 2011

Like it or not, mar­ket­ing does not com­mand the respect it used to, back in “the good old days” of the 20th cen­tury. Execs con­tinue to scratch their heads, look­ing for proof that mar­ket­ing war­rants the invest­ment. Dis­agree? Just think about how many com­pa­nies cut mar­ket­ing bud­gets first before slash­ing any­where else. Or how hard […]

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Creating a Content Strategy Maturity Model

April 11, 2011

B2B mar­keters need to take a more holis­tic, strate­gic approach when it comes to craft­ing con­tent strat­egy. This means look­ing beyond tra­di­tional web + email silos to the broader busi­ness con­text and mar­ket­ing objec­tives. This post intro­duces a draft con­tent strat­egy matu­rity model that can some­day be used for orga­ni­za­tional assess­ment. (Today’s it’s an “alpha stage” work-in-process.)

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2011 Topical Summary by Wordle

March 31, 2011

It’s always fun to review the themes and ideas that have emerged in this blog, as a way of mark­ing both the pas­sage of time, but also the inte­rior con­ver­sa­tion. For the author or con­tent cre­ator, it’s a plea­sur­able feed­back device. Even bet­ter, when that sum­mary is visual: I’m happy to see Wor­dle reflect some […]

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The Pursuit of Clarity: Where Does It Go?

March 28, 2011

When it comes to tech­nol­ogy mar­ket­ing and mes­sag­ing strate­gies, clar­ity often seems to be dep­re­cated — in exe­cu­tion, if not in intent. Instead, know­ingly or not, many mar­keters pur­sue its mir­ror oppo­site: obfus­ca­tion, par­tic­u­larly in com­plex prod­uct cat­e­gories such as enter­prise soft­ware. (See def­i­n­i­tions below.) Posi­tion­ing — The Intent to Clar­ify Ever since Al Ries and […]

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CMOs Expect More from Content Strategy

March 25, 2011

Marketo’s Jon Miller wrote a provoca­tive blog post today, describ­ing the dif­fer­ence between a CMO and a VP of Mar­ket­ing, in terms of lead­er­ship and open­ness to inno­va­tion. His post raises some impor­tant ques­tions for con­tent strate­gists. While a VP of Mar­ket­ing “runs a depart­ment,” “ CMOs fuse strate­gic long-term vision with a strong bias […]

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Real-world Example, Part 2

March 25, 2011

[Con­tin­ued from “CMOs Expect More from Con­tent Strat­egy”] Here’s a prac­ti­cal exam­ple: think­ing through the con­tent strat­egy for home heat­ing and cool­ing sys­tems. This exam­ple illus­trates the logic for a sin­gle cus­tomer sce­nario, home­own­ers who have already pur­chased and installed a new heat­ing sys­tem via the manufacturer’s dealer and installer net­work. Con­tent strate­gists will need […]

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iPad 2: Flawed Buyer Experience?

March 24, 2011

Image via Wikipedia   Apple is the mas­ter at craft­ing the buyer expe­ri­ence: whip­ping con­sumers into a frenzy of antic­i­pa­tion and then, delight­ing the new owner with all that hap­pens start­ing with the out-of-box expe­ri­ence. The recent iPad 2 launch appears to be fol­low­ing the usual Apple play­book:  months of prod­uct spec­u­la­tion in the techno-geek […]

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Content Strategy for Marketers

March 15, 2011

A curi­ous aspect about the hype sur­round­ing con­tent strat­egy for mar­ket­ing is the lack of agree­ment on what it means — or clar­ity on whose bud­get should fund con­tent strat­egy devel­op­ment. Like the blind men with the ele­phant, we draw dif­fer­ent con­clu­sions based on vary­ing frames of ref­er­ence and pro­fes­sional expe­ri­ence. Our per­spec­tives also dif­fer based […]

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The Dark Side of Content Marketing

March 4, 2011

Con­tent mar­ket­ing offers tremen­dous promise, but there’s a dark side to it: loom­ing con­tent chaos, cou­pled with a seri­ous skills short­age that could limit its poten­tial impact. This chal­lenge con­fronts con­tent mar­keters in orga­ni­za­tions of all sizes. Here’s why.

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