Product Documents

  Whether you’re new to Marketo or trying to clean up a mess, you may wonder what you can do to keep your Marketing Activities organized within your instance. Through hiccups and hair pulling, our team has finally discovered a great way to keep ourselves organized, which has enabled us to work more efficiently. Take a look at what we’ve done and determine if it’s the right fit for your organization. In the Marketing Activities section of our Marketo instance, our main folders are set up to represent different activities that are performed in Marketo. Example: >Active Marketing Programs >Demand Generation Programs >Customer Support / Operational Activities >Operational >Archive Folder >Learning Folder Within those folders, we have additional folders that are broken out by the various channels we use. *Active Marketing Programs example below Example: >Active Marketing Programs > Digital Ads > Email Blasts > Events > Newsletter > PPC > Website Within those folders, we've create more descriptive folders for the various campaigns running in each channel. *Event example below Example: >Active Marketing Programs > Digital Ads > Email Blasts > Events                 > Trade Shows                 > Webinars > Newsletter > PPC > Website We have several campaigns running in each channel, so we've built out folders to specify by a specified time frame (year and quarter). *Webinars example below Example: >Active Marketing Programs > Digital Ads > Email Blasts > Events                 > Trade Shows                 > Webinars                                 > 2015 Webinars                                                 > Q1 – 2015 Webinars                                                 > Q2 – 2015 Webinars                                                 > Q3 – 2015 Webinars                                                 > Q4 – 2015 Webinars > Newsletter > PPC > Website Within the specified time frame folder is where we house our individual campaign folders that contain our programs and other local assets for the campaign. For these folders, I’ve found it helpful to follow a very structured naming convention. This helps to ensure that our instance stays organized and everyone working in our instance knows how to label items. My recommendation would be to use the channel type, the date (YYMMDD) and brief description of the program (for our webinars we use the time of the webinar, the service name we're promoting, and the target audience of the campaign). Below is an example of our webinar folder structure. Example: >Active Marketing Programs > Digital Ads > Email Blasts > Events                 > Trade Shows                 > Webinars                                 > 2015 Webinars                                                 > Q1 – 2015 Webinars                                                                 > Webinar – 150205 11 AM SERVICE A – PERSONA 3                                                 > Q2 – 2015 Webinars                                                 > Q3 – 2015 Webinars                                                 > Q4 – 2015 Webinars > Newsletter > PPC > Website This folder houses our event program for the webinar (the event program has the same naming structure as the folder). We also use the same naming structure for our SFDC Campaign Name. Check with your Sales team to see if that’s a viable option for your organization. The folder also houses our "granular channel programs" that we use to attribute success to the various channels we use to drive traffic to the webinar event (such as PPC, email, social, etc.). Happy Building!

By: Jamie Lewis Did you know that there are over 300 million active Twitter users? That’s a HUGE market for your business. So it goes without saying that I am a (vocal) advocate of all companies (B2B and consumer-geared alike) using Twitter as a marketing channel. I myself have had some pretty compelling results with Twitter. For example, I recently tweeted a link to a faux movie trailer that was used to advertise a product that was retweeted 198 times (impressive, I know), netting me dozens of new followers (which I immediately think: potential leads?). With the median Twitter account having about 100 followers, this particular piece of content had the potential of being retweeted nearly 20,000 times! Over time, I have learned through careful, and not so careful, trial & error how to be relevant to my particular audience, and I am achieving better results because of it. Cultivating a strong presence on Twitter has many benefits: you support your organization’s marketing efforts, you can use it to sell socially, you can build your personal brand, or any combination of these things. With all these benefits, I have wondered, why do some of my fellow marketing and sales professionals still struggle to gain traction on such a promising channel? Based on my first-hand observations, marketers and sales-people don’t treat their personal brand enough like a real brand. Here are four common mistakes they make when using Twitter and how to correct them: 1. They don’t pick a specific target audience This often overlooked task is actually pretty easy—just pick one or more of the top target audiences from your other channels and start from there. If you fail to properly identify your audience, your messages will not resonate with the majority of people who see it. The right message may be very different for a business audience and a consumer audience, executives and practitioners, and so on. Selecting an audience is important, because once you have identified a target audience you can address what exactly they’re looking for. Some audiences will be interested in product discounts, others in entertainment, and others in exclusive content. Having a clear idea of the audience and their wants and needs is crucial for capturing their attention. 2. They don’t create a compelling account In order to harness the true power of Twitter, you need to have the right people listening to your messages. This means that you have to be strategic about creating a highly networked account—one where you are following the right people and the right people are following you. With that in mind, I recommend you start by simply searching on Twitter for people to follow for 5-10 minutes a day, every day. Set yourself up for success by finding interesting content and contacts. Pinpoint people your target audience would be interested in, such as industry thought leaders, cultural icons, contemporary movers & shakers, and brands themselves. Next, start listening to those people by reading and engaging in their conversations for at least a few minutes per day. Begin by sharing some witty comments or valuable links and see what happens! Here you’ll learn what type of content is captivating to your core audience. It’s important to remember that Twitter is a social network, but often marketers and salespeople forget to be social on it—so, make sure you participateand listen. 3. They don’t create a logical posting plan A posting plan should be based on your overall Twitter strategy with the goal of engaging your target audience. First, you need to have business outcomes in mind for why you are using the channel to begin with. It could be for personal branding, lead generation, or customer service, to name a few. Make sure you know what the goal is! Then, determine when the target audience is listening and schedule posts accordingly. This is very important, because, according to Quora, retweets peak between the hours of 2pm to 5pm EST. If the target audience is listening during the afternoon, then why post first thing in the morning? Lastly, you should aim to create a detailed editorial calendar for your Twitter messages. This will allow you to create a series of related messages that work together in a coherent, branded pattern which makes sense to your audience. You might think “That’s just for brands”, but really an editorial calendar is for anyone who wants to be successful; often brands are. One more tip—when you post, ask for a retweet. Be explicit and actually spell out this request: “Please Retweet.” According to Fastcompany.com, you are 23x more likely to get a retweet when you do! 4. They aren’t using promoted tweets Promoted tweets are ordinary tweets that get a boost by an advertiser who wants to reach a wider group of users or to spark engagement from their existing followers. Anyone can be an advertiser and most platforms (including Twitter) offer tutorials on how to get started. It is important to use promoted tweets regularly to ensure that messages are seen by the largest audience possible, especially your most important messages. While a regular tweet is only seen by a fraction of the target audience, promoted tweets stay at the top of the Twitter feed for an extended period of time, guaranteeing that more of your target audience (follower and non-follower) see them when they log in. This is vital for growing a Twitter account and finding new followers. Promoted tweets are also great for testing your content types, time of day, and target audience, because the advertising platform gives you data on the success of your tweets. Lastly, explore the different ad options. Once you’re familiar with the Twitter advertising platform, try out other products like promoted Twitter Cards. These types of posts allow you to embed graphics into the tweet for an eye-catching effect. So, by correcting these four mistakes, you can harness Twitter to grow your audience, reinforce your personal brand, and support your organization’s marketing efforts. And remember, always observe the activities that brands do to be successful on social media and apply them to yourself—you’ll be surprised by how often they translate. Happy tweeting! Do you have any other tips for mastering Twitter as a marketing channel? Let us know in the comments below! Jamie Lewis s a Senior Solution Consultant at Marketo and has been in the CRM and marketing automation space for over 15 years. He works closely with marketing agencies and MSPs who leverage Marketo to provide state of the art marketing services to their clients. His focus is consulting on engagement marketing strategies and best practices, in particular regarding top of funnel lead generation using social platforms.

Two docs about the Future of Marketing - High Lever overview of results (different doc in Marketing Central) - Detailed results Survey by Duke University and McKinsey and company.

Two docs about the Future of Marketing - High Lever overview of results - Detailed results (different doc in Marketing Central) Survey by Duke University and McKinsey and company.

By: Sesame Mish Posted: August 24, 2015 | Demand Generation Customers are the lifeblood of any business. Finding quality prospects is one of a marketer’s biggest challenges—how do you find leads that will convert into sales? In fact, 61% of B2B marketers cite generating high-quality leads as their No. 1 challenge. (I bet that even you consumer marketers out there experience this challenge, so stick with me, as I’m sure you’ll find value here, too). Part of the problem is that everywhere you look, someone is telling you about new-and-better ways to generate leads. But, I stress, don’t fall for every trendy new idea or lead gen hack out there. We’ve analyzed the data and have found that there are two strategies that consistently work well for generating leads: content marketing and in-person connections. Strategy #1: Content Marketing Content marketing has become a proven tool for consumer brands, but many marketers still hesitate, unsure if it will be effective for their business. But for the many B2B marketers that have taken the plunge, they’ve found that it’s an ideal vehicle for building relationships with B2B customers, especially with products and services with long sales cycles. According to Forbes: 71% of B2B marketers use content marketing to generate leads. 93% of B2B companies say content marketing generates more leads than traditional marketing strategies. 60% of B2B decision-makers say content provided by companies helps them make smarter buying decisions. Content marketing also generates 3 times as many leads as traditional outbound marketing and costs 62% less.The data shows that content marketing works—even for B2B brands. But, where do you start? Content that generates qualified business leads typically lives in three places: your website’s landing pages, your company blog, and your brand’s social media channels. Let’s take a closer look… 1. Website Landing PagesDon’t assume that everyone who visits your site is starting on your home page. 68% of B2B businesses use strategic landing pages to garner new sales leads. A landing page might be your first opportunity to make a good impression and draw your visitor in.A content marketing strategy that attracts qualified leads creates evergreen content that will bring in top-of-the-funnel queries. Here are some elements that will showcase your expertise: Definition pages: Show you’re in the know by defining and explaining key terms in your industry. Create content that targets search queries for: “What is ___?” Shareable content: Use infographics, video, and other high-impact content that’s easy to digest and share. Gated content: Design engaging landing pages for each unique piece of gated content. 77% of buyers will provide their basic contact information for high value content, but a strategic landing page will get your content in front of them earlier. Create a unique landing page for each resource that addresses some of the entry-level questions about the topic so that users will easily find the resource. They might not download it the first time, but when they’re ready to learn more, they’ll know where to find it. 2. Company BlogBlogs are a proven resource for providing information, creating dialogue, and attaching a personality to your company. They work, too. B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads than those who don’t, and 81% of businesses have reported their blogsas “useful” or “critical” to B2B lead generation. But blog posts won’t be effective if they are just an afterthought. Spend time creating a plan and ensuring that top-of-the-funnel topics regularly recur in your content calendar. It can be tempting to write about the details and nuances of your industry or business to demonstrate the depth of your knowledge. While that’s a good practice occasionally, remember that your competition is not your audience. Top-of-the-funnel topics build awareness and answer questions that buyers are asking at the beginning of the cycle, so industry basics like “What is [insert your product or niche here]?” and FAQs are good places to start.Then make sure that each blog post is pulling its weight by learning to craft great titles and metas to make your posts rank high in Google search results and by using strong keywords to optimize each blog post. 3. Social MediaHaving a presence on social media can be another critical tool to establish your credibility and create a dialogue. In fact, 78% of small businesses now get at least a quarter of their new customers via social media, and two of the best channels for business are LinkedIn and Twitter.LinkedIn is not just a great tool for you as a professional; it’s also a key place for your company to establish its credibility. 44% of B2B marketers have generated leads via LinkedIn. Here’s how to use LinkedIn effectively to help generate quality leads: Rather than littering your profile with casual Facebook-style updates, post resourceful content and publish thought leadership pieces. Don’t spread yourself thin over every group related to your business model. Participate in just a few active groups where your target audience congregates and provide real value by sharing your insights, asking good questions, and stimulating relevant conversation. Twitter is a key source of content for professionals in many industries. People are more likely to visit a B2B tech company’s website, for example, after seeing a tweet from the company. Taking content marketing to a short form like Twitter means: Participating in industry Twitter chats. Including attractive images, strategic hashtags, and relevant links with each post. You can also use Google Alerts to monitor social for brand mentions and then participate in the conversations. Proven Strategy #2: In-Person Connections Clearly, content marketing is a proven way to put a face on your company by sharing information about who you are and what you do. Another way to put a “face” on your company is to get out there and meet people in-person. In study after study, marketers continue to report that some of the best leads come from in-person interactions: The most effective B2B lead generation tactics are inside sales, executive events, telemarketing, tradeshows, and conferences. The highest-quality leads come from tradeshows and events. Referrals are often cited as the most effective B2B lead generation tactics worldwide. For many people, generating leads “in-person” translates to one thing: networking events. But there are a number of other ways to get to know potential customers and collaborators.1. TradeshowsYour customers are already at tradeshows—and ready to make improvements or at least explore new solutions—so take advantage of the proximity. The graph below reveals that tradeshows have the highest quality of leads per any one channel: So, in your effort to make the most of tradeshows, be sure to take the following actions: Networking during the tradeshow: Focus on quality of interaction, rather than quantity. Speaking as part of the program: Contact show organizers early to get on the speaking panel. Demonstrations at the booth: Train show personnel to engage, not just display. 2. Networking EventsNetworking events are great places to make connections, but here’s the key: you want to fish where the fish are. If you’re a graphic designer, don’t just go to meetings with other graphic designers. Industry groups are important for best practices, but if you specialize in graphic design for real estate agents, attend real estate networking events. 3. Local Small Business Association MeetingsSmall Business Association meetings are fertile ground for generating leads because you’re able to meet professionals in all lines of business in one place. Local professionals are usually eager to support fellow small business owners, so it’s a great place to make connections and offer complementary services. Check into sponsoring a meeting—the expense is nominal for many local groups, you’ll have the opportunity to introduce yourself and your company, and you can follow up with a mailing or article on the organization’s website. Bonus Sidenote: Referrals This blog wouldn’t be complete without mentioning that referrals are the best type of lead and customer. Period. They come with credibility built-in from someone that your prospective buyer already knows and trusts. Check out this graph showing the most effective B2B lead gen tactics according to B2B marketers themselves (HINT: referrals is at the top!): T he takeaway here is to treat referrals like gold and to never forget to thank the person who referred you. With this in mind, here are some ways to elicit referrals from your satisfied customers: Ask at every close: Most people would be happy to refer, but they are never asked! Every time you close a sale or deliver the final product, ask if the customer knows someone else who might benefit from your product or service. Help them think of someone: If you feel that the question “Do you know anyone?” is too broad, consider including a suggestion. For example, ask if a manager in another department might benefit from your services. Thank the referrer in-person: Did their referral result in a sale? Take the time to visit their office and thank them in-person with a small gift (company-branded swag, anyone?). Hearing sincere appreciation can really cement the relationship. Until it becomes a habit, asking for referrals in-person may feel awkward, but those first dozen asks will be more comfortable if you have developed a relationship with the client you are asking. It can be difficult, however, to maintain ongoing relationships with every client. Here are a few things you can do online to make the in-person more natural and effective: Provide an email template: Sometimes your clients don’t know how to send you a referral, or it gets lost on a long to-do list. Send a follow-up email template that they can copy-and-paste to friends and colleagues they want to refer. Build an integrated social referral campaign: Social is just a modern expression of word-of-mouth, so make it easy for your “fans” to help you generate leads on the social channels they already use. Institute a marketing automation campaign: Automation can help you maintain great relationships with current clients and prospects so you can feel more comfortable when it comes time to ask for a referral. Whether you’re at a live event, or signing paperwork in an office, one of the best and time-tested ways to get qualified leads is talking to people face-to-face. Look for opportunities, and be prepared to make the most of them. Generate Better B2B Leads We marketers know that qualified leads are the fuel that keeps our company’s engine running. Going after leads both online and in-person will create a 1-2 punch lead gen strategy to keep that funnel full. Face-to-face relationships is how business has been done for centuries, and human nature still favors live interaction to build trust and nurture relationships. Content marketing takes the strengths of in-person interactions and translates them to the web—social media is the new word-of-mouth, and strategic content is a new metric for building trust. So start creating your top-of-the-funnel blog topics, and repurpose them in the small talk that can generate leads when you are meeting in-person. Want to dig in deeper? Check out our Definitive Guide to Lead Generation to learn more about these and other actionable lead gen tactics, or our Definitive Guide to Customer Nurturing for a more consumer-centric take on things. Sesame Mish is a part of the Content Marketing team at Marketo. She is also pursuing an M.S. in Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University. In her spare time, she loves to play volleyball, spend time with family, do volunteer work, and root for her favorite team, the San Francisco Giants!

By: David Myers Posted: August 10, 2015 | Targeting and Personalization http://blog.marketo.com/category/targeting-and-personalizationRemember the first time you visited a website as a returning customer and saw your first name “magically” appear on the login page? Back then, personalization in the consumer market involved little more than inserting a first name into a login page or email. But with the advent of big data and real-time technologies, personalization has transitioned from static elements to contextual engagement. Consumers feel increasingly comfortable making considered purchases online, and, as a result, marketers must seize any opportunity to personalize cross-channel content. Today’s personalization technology makes this possible, delivering customized web, email, mobile, and ad experiences to new and existing customers to help reinforce their loyalty. The New Personalization Is All About Providing Value In the past, personalization was mainly used to identify visitors by name or location and lacked a specific context or relevancy. Apart from not offering value, in the absence of real-time technology, marketing responses were often delayed and required waiting for visitors to return to the website or targeting them days later via email or ads. Fast forward to the present. Personalization tools now analyze user behavior in real-time and immediately deliver targeted content across multiple user channels. Let’s take a look at an example from the hospitality industry to see how this works in action. If you’re promoting travel packages, and you know the consumer’s age and income bracket, this data can easily be leveraged to customize the visuals and offers depending on the channel. For example, college students on spring break are looking for the best parties in town, whereas seniors are more likely to be interested in luxury vacations that are cruise or resort-based. Also, while seniors may prefer receiving an email with the latest holiday deals, young students are accustomed to receiving push notifications on their phones. Knowing these types of particular preferences is extremely valuable to marketers and can be used to select images, construct messaging, and offer packages that best fit an individual customer’s needs. Personalizing Content at Every Step of the Customer Journey Targeting an existing customer whose details you have is one thing, but what happens in the case of anonymous visitors? If we return to the hospitality example, personalization works based on the web visitor’s behavior. This might be a search term the moment that senior citizen searches for “golf package holidays” or actual behavior she shows on the website, like pages viewed and number of clicks. Based on behavior, real-time personalization tools can change the website’s content to be relevant for the visitor. Instead of showing the general picture of the hotel resort, marketers can personalize the webpage to show images of the resort’s golf courses that would appeal to this specific visitor based on their search term behavior. Left image: regular website Right image: personalized website for individual visitor who is searching for golf packages in particular Once an anonymous visitor turns into a known buyer, past purchasing history or any data that the known buyer has provided can be used for personalization which works great for cross-selling or up-selling opportunities. Where Personalization Meets Engagement Marketing Personalization is core to the concept of engagement marketing. This entails listening to, understanding, and responding to consumers, often over a long period of time, based on who they are and what they do. According to Janrain & Harris Interactive, 74% of online consumers get frustrated when a website’s content is irrelevant to their interests. In addition, using demographic and behavioral data to personalize experiences was found to increase conversion rates by 30%! Personalizing content improves your marketing metrics and bottom line. For instance, a hotel chain that used Marketo’s solutions saw the following results from their personalization efforts. Within one month! Over 3,300 online visitors click on personalized calls to actions. These visitors spent an average of 217% more time on the hotel’s website than before and viewed nearly 300% more pages per visit. Overall, visitors who engaged with personalization campaigns on the website showed a 10x lift in revenue conversion as compared to the average site visitor. Consumer Personalization Spans Many Industries The hospitality case study above was just one example of how personalization can be used to engage targeted consumers. Personalization is also effective in the considered purchase market ranging from luxury goods to finance, healthcare, and real estate.Here are several ways that personalization can be used in these markets: Luxury Goods: For jewelry sellers, if a consumer with a high income profile performs a Google search for “gemstones” and clicks on a search result that links to your website, the home page will be personalized, based on their profile and search term used, to a visual of a higher priced gemstone offer. Travel and Leisure: A tourism website can upsell or cross-sell returning visitors by featuring banners with exclusive VIP packages for loyal customers. Healthcare: Web visitors can be identified by location, enabling healthcare providers to limit website info strictly to policies for that specific location. High-End Retail: Brick-and-mortar locations can offer special discounts or offers to in-store shoppers and target them on their mobile devices. Give Your Consumers What They Truly Want Personalization in the digital world is about understanding who your customers are and which channels are most suitable for them to offer the most engaging content at every moment. Your consumers are constantly interacting with your brand, and you have to be ready, at any point in time, to react with the right messaging. Real-time technology has transformed personalization and makes it more relevant than ever to enable marketers to stay one step ahead of their target market and ensure they’re always met with the best, most personalized content. David is a product manager for Marketo’s Real-Time Personalization (RTP) platform. Prior to joining Marketo, David spearheaded the digital marketing for a leading global consumer goods company. When not dreaming about the next product feature, David can be spotted wasting hours on the cricket field.

By: Becky Hirsch Posted: August 11, 2015 | Email Marketing Do you hear that? It’s getting louder. It’s the sound of millions of emails, targeted ads, and personalized web experiences fighting for relevance. Despite the noise, B2B and B2C brands succeed at delivering relevant information to their target audiences. According to Direct Marketing Association, for every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return-on-investment is $40.56. But there’s a difference between threading the needle and really creating something. In many cases, data is being used to deliver personalized email campaigns with fantastic results. The Aberdeen Group says that personalized emails improve click-through rates by 14% and conversion rates by 10%. With results like these, the motivation to test, segment, and personalize email campaigns will no doubt increase. However, the success of these incremental improvements to email marketing depends largely on the next steps customers take after engaging with your email. Whether you’re sending them to a specific landing page or inviting them to take advantage of a personalized offer on-site, the work doesn’t end in your customer’s inbox. By looking at how you use data to improve email marketing from the broader perspective of your web or mobile experience, you can multiply the impact of your targeting. And it’s worth it. According to Steelhouse, using correct targeting and testing methods can increase conversion rates up to 300%. Break Down the Barriers Closing the data loop and breaking down the organizational divisions between email marketing and website optimization is increasingly common. Marketers are adopting this strategy, particularly as facts about open-rates on mobile come to light and digital teams unite forces. But any brand making a significant investment in email marketing will soon be throwing good money after bad without an optimized, personalized mobile experience. Eisenberg Holdings says that companies typically spend $92 to bring customers to their site, but only $1 to convert them. Instead, make your money count twice by investing in a strategy that combines data from email marketing with on-site behavior for a comprehensive approach to optimization. According to EConsultancy, 64% of companies would like to improve their personalization, 64%, their marketing automation, and 62%, their segmentation. The key is to unify these three key areas for a strategy that will keep your communications relevant and your audience engaged. Here, I’m going to share four ways your website’s optimization strategy can enhance your email marketing efforts, and vice versa! Let’s get started… 1. Use Website Data to Validate Email Segmentation Segmenting your audience for email marketing is not an uncommon practice. However, the segmentation of your website traffic is often treated as a mutually exclusive effort. Try This: Use your website data to validate predefined segments for email marketing campaigns with a URL parameter. By doing so, you can find out whether your segments behave how you expected them to with metrics that look at their behavior from first click to exit. 2. Use Email Marketing Attributes to Create a Better On-Site Experience The data from email and websites can interact in either direction. One leading travel brand worked with Maxymiser, a website and app optimization solution, on an email campaign designed to bring users to the site by converting email prospects with a featured destination that best reflected their preferences (either collected or expressed.) Using Maxymiser’s optimization solution, the brand selected 36 destinations to offer and used each one as a specific variant of the test. Try This: Segment visitors who came from email and determine which predictive attributes will make their visit the best possible experience. In the above instance, the brand took the attributes generated by an email campaign and used them to test and target on their site—and you can too. 3. Map Email Engagement and CRM With the right tools, you can map the unique identifier to a CRM file and target specific individualized content to that visitor. Try This: The data-driven marketer (you!) could place an individualized identifier in the URL of an email campaign. You can also match up an individual from the aforementioned unique URL to segments or visitor groups defined in the CRM file. 4. Test and Target from Email to Landing Page (Mobile or Desktop) Using your optimization solution, you can test custom content on your predefined email segments by redirecting them from email to a specific landing page. Try This: Optimize both your emails and landing pages in a single test and combine your analytics for a clear perspective on your user’s behavior. This might be a particularly interesting test to run on a mobile landing page. In Q1 2014, more email was opened on iPhones (38%) than all desktops combined (34%). You can be sure that these percentages have only increased in the last 12 months. With that being said, if you’re hoping to convert a visitor with email, you have to optimize your mobile landing pages. A website optimization solution like Maxymiser can run the aforementioned desktop landing page test on mobile as well. A unified optimization and email marketing team could easily work together to generate a rich tapestry of insights by segmenting email audiences and testing the optimal experience on desktop or mobile, depending on where the user comes from. So, don’t just think about the connection between email marketing and optimization; plan for success by aligning your strategy with a multi-channel approach like the one I have described above. On the road to becoming a holistic digital marketing organization, the marriage between email marketing and website optimization is one of the most valuable steps. Becky Hirsch is a content writer and editor at Maxymiser. She works closely with consultants and analysts to turn their optimization expertise into accessible content for the modern marketer.

By: Marcus Taylor Posted: August 13, 2015 | Marketing Automation The marketing automation industry has snowballed over the past few years, and yet it’s only just getting started. According to Marketing Automation Insider, in the past five years alone, we’ve seen over $5.5B worth of acquisitions made, and an aggregate vendor revenues increase from $225M to $1.65B! At the current rate of adoption and innovation, you may be wondering where marketing automation is headed, which trends are emerging, and how it will all benefit your business. Well, my friend, you’ve come to the right place! Here, we’ll explore three major shifts in the marketing automation industry and how they’ll impact your businesses on both a macro and micro-level. Let’s get started… 1. Predictive analytics is making guessing a game of the past One of the major trends emerging in the marketing automation industry is the use of predictive analytics and machine learning to power sales and marketing decisions. Predictive analytics uses clever statistical models to identify what your customers will likely do next and then automatically uses those insights to trigger certain actions. In 2012, Amazon filed a patent for a predictive analytics system that would allow them to begin shipping productsbefore a customer even ordered them. (Crazy thought, right?!) But by predicting the probability of someone buying a product based on their behavior on the website and previous history, Amazon could reduce its shipping times and move product faster. There are countless uses for this type of technology, but in the context of marketing automation, it provides the opportunity to eliminate guess work. How long should you wait between sending two emails in a lead nurturing sequence? Which content (blogs, ebooks, etc) should you send to a certain type of lead? How should you score a lead from a particular marketing channel? While experience tends to provide good answers to these questions, predictive analytics can provide dynamic answers that, like a good bottle of wine, become better over time, ultimately surpassing that of an experienced marketer’s hunch. As a result of this, marketing and sales will become less of a guessing game. The most important consequence of this is that companies using predictive analytics will have the competitive advantage. Predictive analytics adoption is still in its infancy, providing the innovative early birds with a great opportunity to get a head start. The question is, will it be you or your competitors that gain this competitive advantage? 2. Intelligent multi-channel marketing is becoming the norm Tests have shown that when you target a customer both in their inbox with an email and on Facebook with a matching ad, the customer is 22% more likely to purchase, as opposed to if you had only sent the email. In multi-channel marketing, the whole is usually greater than the sum of its parts. This is especially true when you add a layer of personalization into the mix, which is of course possible with marketing automation. Let’s look at time for an example. Let’s imagine that you’re the marketing director of a company that sells kitchen appliances online. A prospect named Molly visits your website and adds a fridge to her shopping cart (obviously a very large shopping cart.) Molly enters her details to check out but never completes the transaction. In this situation your multi-channel strategy could look something like this: After 30 minutes, an automated email is triggered encouraging Molly to complete her order (in case she got distracted by a phone call…or Game of Thrones). Using retargeting through a sync with your marketing automation platform and Facebook, Molly sees an ad saying “Molly, are you refurbishing your kitchen?” and linking to a separate landing page. If this landing page is engaged with, Molly would be entered into a whole new sequence with upsells and offers incentivizing her to buy more items. If after one day Molly still hasn’t bought the fridge, a text message could be sent asking if there’s anything your support team could answer or help her with. If after several days later there’s still no purchase, a separate email and Facebook ad campaign could be triggered targeting Molly with different fridges and freezers relating to her original search criteria. This type of multi-channel nurturing is immensely effective for a number of reasons: It’s underused. Despite being very effective, few companies are running such hyper-personalized campaigns. This will likely change over the next few years, as more and more companies realize its effectiveness. With more channels, you can capture more data from your customers, leading to more relevant targeting. The more relevant your targeting, the more likely a conversion will be. It makes it virtually impossible to lose a customer due to distraction, as you’re able to communicate with the buyer across devices and platforms and at different times. We’re likely to see a lot more multi-channel marketing over the next year or two. As marketing automation tools improve their offerings and features, and as more case studies emerge, more and more businesses will begin to use this powerful tactic. Could this sort of multi-channel marketing help your business convert more leads into customers? 3. Marketing automation is becoming widely adopted There are two colliding waves in the marketing automation industry that are converging to form a tsunami-like surge of businesses interested in marketing automation. These waves are 1) the increased awareness of the value of marketing automation and 2) the increasing impact and capabilities of marketing automation software. Since 2012, the amount of case studies, articles, webinars, and events covering marketing automation has exploded, resulting in a heightened awareness of the impact of adopting a marketing automation solution. Simultaneously, marketing automation software is becoming more and more powerful. With new features and functionality, such as real-time personalization and adtech-geared tools, as well as an increasing pool of experts readily sharing best practices, the scope of what marketing automation software can achieve is continuing to expand. Word—and excitement—is spreading like wildfire. These two converging waves have an obvious result: more and more businesses (your competitors included) are implementing a marketing automation solution. As such, it pays to get ahead of the game and start building your marketing automation campaigns early. That way, by the time your competitors are building out their first campaigns, your business could have hundreds of active, fine-tuned campaigns already working on leads. Get to it! Conclusion As far as we can tell from the data, marketing automation is becoming smarter, more tailored, and more accessible. The combination of these trends explains why the industry has grown so rapidly over the past five years and why it does not appear to be slowing down anytime soon. For business owners, the lesson here is simple and Darwinian: evolve now (aka get automating), or risk losing your market share to your competitors. Marcus Taylor is the founder of Venture Harbour, a company that owns a portfolio of online ventures including Marketing Automation Insider.

By: David Lizerbram Originally posted on Marketo.com on August 12, 2015 | Modern Marketing Podcasting has become big business. For those of you who aren’t up on the medium, a podcast is simply a recorded audio show that you can download or stream and play any time you like. Top podcasters like John Lee Dumas of Entrepreneur on Fire are generating hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. Businesses are jumping into the podcast world as a hot new marketing channel—and as a new source of direct revenue. Many companies are embracing podcasts as a fresh component of their content marketingstrategy. With that being said, you may want to monetize a podcast directly through advertisements, paid expert testimonials, and endorsements. As with any other type of advertising, there are a few laws that apply to podcast ads. But don’t worry—they’re very straightforward and easy to follow. In this post, I’m going to share five simple rules to follow to help you avoid legal issues while you’re monetizing your podcast, based on two documents put out by our friends at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC): Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising and .com Disclosures: How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising. At the end of this post, we’ll talk about the financial penalties for not following these rules. Trust me, you’re going to want to know the laws. To keep it simple, I’m going to use the word “endorsement” to include any type of endorsement, testimonial, or affiliate arrangement. Also, you might be asking, “Which kinds of products do these rules apply to?” The answer is that if you’re endorsing or advertising just about anything, these rules apply. When in doubt, disclose! …And Now For the 5 Simple Rules: Rule #1: Be Honest The Guides states, “Endorsements must reflect the honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experience of the endorser”. What This Means: If you listen to some popular podcasts, you’ll hear that the host often promotes a product or service. Ford has been advertising cars on the wildly successful podcast Startup, while many podcasters have been known to talk to their listeners about web services like Squarespace. The rule here is pretty simple: be honest. If you haven’t used the product or service that you’re advertising, don’t say “We use this software every day!” Rule #2: If You Claim to Be an Expert, Actually Be an Expert The Guides state: “Whenever an advertisement represents, directly or by implication, that the endorser is an expert with respect to the endorsement message, then the endorser’s qualifications must in fact give the endorser the expertise that he or she is represented as possessing with respect to the endorsement”. What This Means: Let’s say your company is paid to state on your podcast, “We’ve tried every product on the market, and Social-Ad-O-Rama can get you the highest converting social ads”. This statement suggests that you’re an expert. Don’t make this kind of statement on the podcast if your company doesn’t know the first thing about social ads. Let’s be clear: it’s fine to run a pre-recorded advertisement for a product that you’ve never used and don’t know much about. That’s happened on every TV show and every radio show since those media were invented. It’s called “advertising”! However, you personally shouldn’t endorse or testify, on behalf of your company, about the quality of a product that you’re not familiar with. Rule #3: It’s About the Relationship The Guides are just that—indications of how to go about making the proper disclosures. Ultimately, the key is to communicate the nature of the relationship so that your audience understands what’s going on. The FTC states: “The issue is—and always has been—whether the audience understands the reviewer’s relationship to the company whose products are being reviewed”. Here’s what the Guides say on this topic: “When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement…, such connection must be fully disclosed”. What This Means: Advertising law is based on the assumption, right or wrong, that people want to know that a host has been paid or received something for free in exchange for an endorsement (or even a potential endorsement). So if your endorsement fits into that category, you need to disclose that information. Keep reading to the end of this post to find out the financial penalties for not doing so. Rule #4: You Can’t Hide or Bury the Disclosure The .com Disclosures says, in bold letters: Don’t be subtle. Therefore, the disclosure must be clear and conspicuous. Say it upfront. It’s not enough to endorse something at the beginning of the podcast and then reveal at the end of the show that the company was paid or otherwise compensated. If the endorsement is repeated in your show notes, blog post, or other medium, the disclosure must be repeated there as well. Rule #5: Fancy Legal Jargon Is Not Your Friend From the .com Disclosures: “For disclosures to be effective, consumers must be able to understand them. Advertisers should use clear language and syntax and avoid legalese or technical jargon. Disclosures should be as simple and straightforward as possible”. Easy enough. Use the same type of language to explain the relationship between your company and the product that you’d use in explaining anything else to your audience. Thus… Don’t Say: “This statement is here to comply with the requirements of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission”. —Who knows what that means?! Do Say: “Just so you know, Amazon pays me a small commission every time you purchase the book through this link. That helps support this podcast and allows us to bring you this valuable content for free”.—That type of language is clear, simple, and provides your listener with an opportunity to feel good about supporting your show. OK, But What If I Don’t Follow These 5 Simple Rules? The FTC states that failure to follow these rules can result in penalties of up to $11,000 per violation. Let’s say your company has a podcast that runs three times per week, and in each podcast you have three ads where you don’t follow the disclosure rules, and you’ve been doing so for three years. Well, multiply all that times $11,000 and you’ve got a nice fat check to write. Don’t worry—I’ve got a calculator handy—it’s $15,444,000! Most likely, the penalty would be adjusted according to the particular circumstances—but if I were you, I wouldn’t rely on asking a judge to give you a break on the fine. It’s much easier and less of a headache, not to mention less expensive, to follow the rules in the first place. To wrap this post up, there’s nothing wrong with monetizing your podcast. You just need to know the rules and disclose the details to your audience. As long as your audience is clear, you’re in the clear. For more information, take a look at the two aforementioned guides: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising and .com Disclosures: How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising (which is available in ebook format.) Of course, since this post should not be taken as legal advice, I recommend you familiarize yourself with those documents before proceeding with your advertising program. Looking for more legal tips for business podcasters? Download my free ebook, Podcast Law, at PodcastLawGuide.com. David Lizerbram is an attorney and business law strategist in private practice in San Diego. When he is not assisting clients or working on his blog, David enjoys watching movies, listening to podcasts, and sipping craft beer. Check out his blog at http://LizerbramLaw.com/blog/

What terms should we add to this magical list? A/B Split – Refers to a test situation in which a list is split into two pieces with every other recipient being sent one of two specific emails, to determine which email is more desirable. A/B Testing – A method of testing a control sample against other versions in which a single element varies Above the fold – The part of an email message or web page that is visible without scrolling. Material in this area is considered more valuable because the reader sees it first. Accelerator Campaigns -- Campaigns that attempt to move prospects along the buying cycle faster by providing relevant “nudges” triggered by specific buyer behaviors or sales updates Account – Companies or organizations; can be prospects, customers, partners or even competitors Acquisition Cost – In email marketing, the cost to generate one lead, newsletter subscriber or customer in an individual email campaign; typically, the total campaign expense divided by the number of leads, subscribers or customers it produced. Alert – An automatic notification in sales and marketing technologies triggered by a lead’s specific behavior, change in status or the reaching of a specific lead score threshold Apex – A development platform for creating Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications on top of Salesforce.com functionality Attachment – A file that is sent in addition to the text or html in an email message Authentication – Technical standards through which ISPs and other mail gateway administrators can establish the true identity of an email sender Authentication - Technical standards through which ISPs and other mail gateway administrators can establish the true identity of an email sender. Examples of proposed authentication standards include: SPF (PO Box, AOL), Sender-ID (Microsoft), DomainKeys (Yahoo), and DKIM (Cisco and Yahoo). B2B Blogging – Also known as corporate or organizational blogging; involves the use of a blog or online journal to promote a company’s products or services with the goal of increasing conversions and driving revenue B2B Social Media - the various channels of the social web (blogs, social networks, wikis, etc.) as they pertain to business-to-business interactions. B2B social media also refers to how prospects, customers and businesses use the social web to research, listen, communicate and engage with each other through the exchange of content. BANT – The acronym for budget, authority, need, timeline— critical attributes that are used to determine the sales readiness of a lead Blacklist – A list of IP addresses believed to send spam Blog – A contraction for “weblog,”; an online diary or journal Blog – An online journal, with new entries appearing in sequence as they are written Bounce – A message that is returned to the sender because it was not deliverable. Buying Committee – Refers to all individuals involved in the B2B buying decision at an organization Campaign Management - The process of creating, executing, and measuring marketing programs directed at specific audience segments Campaign – Any marketing program to be tracked in Salesforce.com or Marketo CAN-SPAM – Federal legislation governing unsolicited commercial email that went into effect on January 1, 2004. This law does not prohibit unsolicited commercial email, but it does regulate how it must be sent. Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) – Controls the design and format of a document written in HTML Closed Loop Marketing -- Campaigns that send communications based on a prospect’s previous actions and their place in the buying cycle Cloud Computing – A term referring to a development platform in which applications are delivered as services in the “cloud,” requiring no hardware or software to maintain Company Score – The total score of all leads for a specific company. This may also be calculated by average. Also known as Account Score Contact – An individual belonging to an account Conversion Path – A specific online path offered to web visitors after clicking on a landing page Conversion Rate – The primary success metric for landing pages Conversion – A specific event that represents the goal of the landing page Converted Lead – A lead that has been deemed qualified for sales and that converts into a Contact Custom Field – A field outside of the preconfigured fields provided within Salesforce.com created to fit the specific needs of a business Custom Object – A custom Salesforce.com database table that enables organizations to store information unique to them Custom Report – A report outside of the standard set of Salesforce.com reports created to measure and analyze data in a specific way Customer Relationship Management (CRM) – Systems and strategies that seek to drive revenue through an improved understanding of customers and an increase in customer satisfaction and relationship building Dashboard – A visual display of a company’s performance metrics based on one or more custom reports De-duplication – The process of finding and consolidating and/or updating duplicate sets of contact information Deliverability – The ability of an email message or campaign to reach the intended recipient’s inbox, which is affected by spam filters, client-side filters and junk folders Delivery Status Notification (DSN) – Also known as “bounce message”, a system that informs the sender of a delivery problem Demand Generation – The act of using marketing to create interest or demand in a company’s products or services Depreciation – The ability to automatically lower a lead score due to inactivity, status change, or any other attribute that signifies a decrease in the level of interest – sometimes known as Lead Degradation and Score Decay DNS Records – The database records stored in the domain name system Domain Name System – A naming system for computers connected to the Internet or private network DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) – A method for email authentication that allows an organization to take responsibility for a message in a way that can be validated by a recipient Drip Campaign -- A series of scheduled emails that deliver thought leadership to prospects that have opted in to receive marketing communications Dynamic Content – Email content that changes from one recipient to the next according to a set of predetermined rules or variables, either by preferences the user sets when opting in to messages or based on behavior or demographics of the recipient. Dynamic Site Change – Dynamically changing content, images or other elements according to a user’s real-time preference (e.g. search term used) Email Campaign Management – The process of creating, executing and measuring email marketing programs directed at specific audience segments Email Marketing – The use of email communication to increase awareness, generate leads and build relationships with prospective and existing customers Email Service Provider (ESP) – A company that provides email services, including batch email and email marketing Explicit Data – Information that a prospect provides that is unambiguous such as title, industry, company, etc. Force.com – A cloud computing development platform that allows for the building of SaaS applications and enables them to be run on Salesforce.com servers Groundswell – A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations Hashtag – A community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to tweets Heuristics – Quick methods often involved in problem solving, such as gut instinct, educated guesses or “common sense” Implicit Data – Information that is revealed by a prospect’s online behavior such as pages visited, and recency or frequency of visits Inbound Marketing – A type of marketing characterized by prospects and customers seeking out and finding companies rather than vice versa Incoming Lead Processing Campaigns -- What you do and how you act when you first meet someone will affect how he or she perceives you from there on out Influencer – A person who is highly recognized in an online community and has the ability to sway others’ thoughts or opinions Internet Protocol Address (IP Address) – A number assigned to each computer or network in order to distinguish each network interface and networked device Internet Service Provider (ISP) – Sometimes referred to as Internet access provider (IAP), gives customers access to the Internet Interruption Marketing – A type of outbound marketing that seeks to capture a prospect’s attention by forcing marketing communications in front of them; opposite of permission marketing ISP Feedback – When the ISP forwards complaints of recipients to the organization that sent the email Landing Page Optimization – The process of obtaining the greatest number of conversions from a landing page by continuously testing and revising various landing page elements Landing Page – A web page that a user encounters after clicking on a link from a search engine, advertisement, email or other marketing vehicle Lead Database – A system used to collect information on a company’s leads, such as demographic; budget, authority, need, timeline (BANT); and behavioral data Lead Handoff -- The process of passing a lead from marketing to sales Lead Lifecycle Campaigns -- Campaigns that ensure movement and interaction with prospects, even if they are not ready to buy or sales does not engage Lead Nurturing – The process of building relationships with qualified prospects regardless of their timing to buy, with the goal of earning their business when they are ready Lead Recycling -- The process of passing a lead from sales back to marketing because a lead was not yet ready to buy Lead Scoring – The process of determining the sales readiness of leads using a pre-determined scoring methodology and ranking them accordingly Lead – An individual or company that has the potential of doing business with your organization LinkedIn – A business-oriented social networking site List Fatigue – A condition producing diminishing returns from a mailing list whose members are sent too many offers, or too many of the same offers, in too short a period of time. List Hygiene – Process of cleaning and de-duplicating email files to ensure all addresses are accurate, unique, current, opt-in and deliverable. Marketing Asset – A piece of marketing content (e.g. whitepapers, videos, newsletters, webinars, etc.) used to educate and generate interest for a company’s products or services Marketing Automation – The use of technology to manage and automate the process of converting prospective customers into actual buyers Marketing Lead -- A lead generated by marketing, which has not yet being qualified as a sales prospect Meme – A catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet Microblogging – A type of blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micromedia, such as photos or audio clips, and publish them. The most popular microblogging platform is Twitter Microsite – A small website consisting of a few related pages that is part of a larger website Multiple Scoring – The ability to assign multiple scores to a lead, which can be useful for companies with multiple products or campaigns that need to be managed separately Multivariate Testing – A method of testing a control sample against other versions in which multiple elements may vary Opportunities – Deals that constitute a sales pipeline and contribute to forecast Opt-in – The agreement to receive email from a business source. Confirmed or Double opt-in refers to a double-check procedure in which a decision to be included on a mailing list is confirmed. Parent-child Campaign – A campaign that involves an umbrella “parent” campaign record (e.g. “2010>Q1>Email”) that is comprised of numerous “child” campaigns (e.g., “2010-Q1-Email-Introduction,” “2010-Q1-Email-First Follow-up,” etc.) Permission Marketing – A type of marketing that seeks to first gain permission from prospects before marketing to them Persona – A fictional person used to represent a specific target segment for a company; personas aid in marketing, product development, usability and other areas Personalization – A targeting method in which an email message appears to have been created only for a single recipient. Personalization may include any known demographic or behavioral information including recipient name, company name, website page visited and more. Phishing – Sending email that claims to be from a legitimate organization to trick recipients into providing personal information Plain Text – Text in an email message that includes no formatting code Point Cap – A limit placed on a lead score to prevent scores from being inflated by repeated actions or triggers (e.g. multiple downloads of the same white paper) Post-Click Marketing – Everything that happens once someone clicks on an organization’s website, but before they are a known lead. This includes the site itself, but also all landing pages that work to drive conversions for a company Post-Conversion Marketing – Includes all activities and communications from marketing after a prospect shares their information with a company until they become a customer. This includes email marketing, lead nurturing and lead scoring, all of which are critical for B2B companies to get the most of their pre- and post-click marketing Pre-Click Marketing – Everything that happens prior to someone getting to a company website. It’s the area of marketing that focuses on driving a prospect to an organization’s website and can be just as important as the website itself, since without pre-click optimization, the website may never be seen Product Score – The score for a lead that indicates their interest in a specific product. An organization may capture multiple product scores Qualified – The lead characteristic of being ready to engage with sales—a definition that is agreed upon by marketing and sales according to the profile of an “ideal” customer and a scoring methodology Revenue Cycle – A new way of looking at the traditional sales cycle, the revenue cycle starts from the day the organization first meets a prospect and continues through the sale and beyond to the customer relationship Role Accounts – An email account that is associated with a department, office, position or task RSS – (Really Simple Syndication) A web standard for the delivery of content — blog entries, news stories, headlines, images, video — enabling readers to stay current with publications without having to browse to their content. Sales 2.0 – Also referred to as social selling, the merging of Web 2.0 technologies with traditional sales strategies, enabling salespeople to better prioritize their time and serve as experts—not just negotiators— in the product selection process Sales Ready Lead -- A lead that has been qualified by marketing based upon criteria agreed upon by both sales and marketing Scoring methodology – The framework by which leads are scored (e.g. points, letter grades, etc.) Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – Also known as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising; the process of paying a search engine to advertise a product or service Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – The process of employing different tactics to improve a business’s ranking in organic or unpaid search results to ultimately increase conversions Seed Email Accounts – Accounts created by a monitoring service with each of the ISPs Seed Nurturing -- The process of building relationships with qualified prospects before you have their contact information Segment – A portion of an audience that is targeted to receive a specific marketing campaign Segment – The ability to slice a list into specific pieces determined by various attributes, such as open history or name source. Sender Policy Framework (SPF) – An email vailidation system that is used to prevent spam Sender Score – An indication of the trustworthiness of an email source Sentiment – A level of assessment that determines the tone of an article, blog post, a company, etc.; usually positive, negative or neutral Short URL – An alias short URL used for redirection of long URLs Social Media Monitoring – The use of search engine technology to ‘listen’ for specific keywords as defined by your organization Social Media – Any strategy, software system or media outlet that relies on social interaction and the participation of individuals or communities to create and publish content Social News – Websites where users submit and vote on news stories or other links, thus determining which links are presented Social Proof – The determination of what is right by finding out what other people think is right Social Selling – Also referred to as Sales 2.0, the merging of Web 2.0 technologies with traditional sales strategies, enabling salespeople to better prioritize their time and serve as experts—not just negotiators— in the product selection process Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) – A way of deploying software so that users access the software “on-demand” as a web-based service, and the software vendor hosts the application on its own web servers Spam Traps – Old inboxes that ISPs reactivate specifically to trap spammers. Because these addresses have never been registered to receive email, any mail that lands in the trap inbox is labeled as spam Spoofing – A fraudulent email activity in which the sender address and email header are changed to look as though the email originated from a different source Statistical Significance – In the case of online testing, the probability that an event did not occur by chance Stay in Touch Campaigns -- Campaigns that “drip” out relevant content to prospects over time, helping to educate them and build trust and credibility for your company Suppression File – A list of email addresses you have removed from your regular mailing lists, either because they have opted out of your lists or because you do not wish to email them (competitors, etc...)_ Threshold – A score used to determine whether or not a specific action should be taken on a lead Trigger – An event based on a change or update in status, demographic information, or user behavior that causes a lead to proceed along a specific workflow branch or new path Twebinar - A mashup between a live podcast/audio broadcast and Twitter as the backchannel for discussion Twitter -- A social networking and microblogging service in which users send and read other users' updates known as tweets that are 140 characters or less Unsubscribe - To remove oneself from an email list, either via an emailed command to the list server or by filling in a web form. Web 2.0 – A term used to describe the second generation of web tools and software that encourage users to become more active participants, creating content and interacting with each other within web-based, social communities Website Monitoring – The ability to monitor page visits, click-throughs, form submissions, and other online activities from either known or anonymous visitors Widget – A mini application that performs a specific function and connects to the Internet YouTube – A video sharing website on which users can upload and share videos What terms should we add to this magical list?

Originally published in Forbes How Technology Is Transforming The Structure Of The Marketing Organization This article is by Phil Fernandez, chairman and CEO of Marketo, a marketing-automation company. Technology is no longer the tail that wags the marketing dog – it is the entire dog, nose to tail. There was a time in the not too distant past when digital was an add-on function in the marketing equation. Today, digital is at the core of everything we do in marketing. And that has profound ramifications for the business of marketing, the people who practice it, and the companies that rely on it to grow and succeed. Just as technology has transformed how companies market themselves and their brands, it is having a similarly momentous impact on corporate marketing organizations and the people who staff and manage them. For corporations to fully capitalize on the technology-fueled marketing revolution– or just avoid being left behind – they will need to completely rethink and restructure their marketing departments. Companies large and small are already starting to align their marketing departments with the new technology-driven business environment, but these changes are happening with less urgency than is warranted. Marketing should be a leading indicator in business (and technology), not a lagging one. So what does the tech-empowered marketing organization of the future look like, and what do you need to do to build one today? In my mind there are two big areas of focus: A Customer Mindset A study we commissioned earlier this year that found that 75% of CMOs and senior marketing executives expect to own the end-to-end customer relationship in the next three to five years.  Assuming even more responsibility for managing the entire customer lifecycle, the CMO is now organizing the marketing function around the customer rather than around channels, internal processes and tools (e.g., no more separate email and social marketing teams). We’re also seeing centers of excellence emerging to connect common, horizontal functions and drive coordination around engaging the customer. This includes breaking down the old barriers between customer acquisition and loyalty.  Suffice it to say that if you still have a separate digital group in your marketing department, you are probably headed in the wrong direction. A New Team For years the key players in the marketing department were the VPs of brand marketing, corporate marketing and product marketing. Who are the leaders in this new digital age? The term “content marketing” barely existed five years ago. Today most marketing departments have at least one executive whose sole job is to oversee the development and distribution of content to attract and engage customers. The modern marketing organization is increasingly being powered by an engine that is process-driven. This has given rise to a new role, the head of marketing operations,who isr esponsible for driving that engine with the right blend of technology and data. I also believe we need to designate a head of listening. This individual would listen to what the customer really says and understand how she behaves via the web, mobile, social and the “real” world, too. Always advocating for the customer’s needs and wants, the head of listening would use these insights to empower the marketing team to respond in real-time, customer-by-customer, thus helping to build the long-term relationships that produce outsized revenue growth. Notwithstanding all of this progress, too many companies are not evolving fast enough. To paraphrase the great poet Chaucer, time and tide wait for no company. Forward-thinking corporations are moving aggressively to build customer-centric, technology-driven marketing organizations that are competing more effectively and poised to win the future. Is your company ready?

Written by  , one of Marketo's Champions. I often get asked where I do my research on various marketing automation and digital marketing topics. When I first started writing this post, I wanted to break out the top 5 blogs—then I gave up. It’s like picking players for the baseball Hall of Fame with only 1 pick. The fact is there are a ton of great resources you can lean on for digital marketing and technology content. In the end, I broke out some of the blogs based on what I consider to be the core part of digital marketing technology–that’s marketing automation and its effect on driving leads through the funnel. Content is the fuel that fills that marketing automation engine so you’ll find several content blogs on the list. And yes, there are a couple miscellaneous blogs included because the content is so good. What’s not included: There are some great general marketing, SEO and social blogs but they are not included in this list. And yes, I’m probably missing a bunch—I apologize in advance. If there are sites you find useful, please note them in the comments. A special thanks goes out to our content manager Alyssa Reeves who helped pull together this nearly 2,000-word post. The Blog Categories I did however break up the blogs into categories. Top Overall – Expert Blogs. These blogs may fall across several categories but they rise to the top in the content they provide. Marketing Automation/Technology Vendor Blogs. There are hundreds of vendor digital technology blogs out there. I focused on marketing automation blogs as I view these platforms as the engine that everything else feeds into. Professional Services and Agency Blogs. Like the vendors, these blogs put out some great best practice content. Blogs with a Marketo Twist. I am a little biased to Marketo so blogs that highlight Marketo get a little extra attention. Top Overall – Expert Blogs These blogs rise to the top for blogs to check out. There is some overlap with the agencies but the way I broke it out…if I think of the leader before the agency, the site falls into this bucket. Otherwise, the site drops into the Services category. In alphabetical order….. 1) BeachHead Marketo Champion Steve Moody and his team give tips on everything marketing automation with a Marketo focus. @AskBeachhead Visit Site 2) Brian Solis Blog Brian Solis is a digital analyst, anthropologist, and futurist. Not sure I have ever seen those three words together. Brian’s blog focuses on digital marketing’s effect on transforming business. Brian’s blog is consistently ranked in the Top 10 of the Ad Age Power 150, and ranks among the top 1% of all blogs tracked by Technorat @briansolis Visit Site 3) B2B Marketing Insider Michael Brenner is the Head of Strategy for the leading content marketing platform, NewsCred. He created his blog to focus on emerging business and marketing strategy topics such as content marketing, lead generation, search marketing, digital media, and social media. B2B Marketing Insider is dedicated to sharing the ideas, topics and marketing strategies that drive real results. @BrennerMichael Visit Site 4) Chief Martec Scott Brinker runs this blog on everything marketing technology including Marketing Automation. If you have seen that crazy Marketing Tech Landscape Supergraphicwith 1,876 vendors, that’s Scott’s baby. @chiefmartec Visit Site 5) Content Marketing Institute Content is what fuels the marketing automation engine and CMI covers everything related to content. Over 100K subscribers. @CMIContent Visit Site 6) Convince and Convert Jay Baer is a marketing visionary who has worked with more than 700 brands. His blog is one of the top content marketing sites on the web. @jaybaer Visit Site 7) Duct Tape Marketing Content is what fuels the funnel and John Jantsch gives useful advice on how to create content that drives brand. @ducttape Visit Site 😎 Etumos Ed Unthank loves his whiteboard and puts it to great use bringing some key marketing automation concepts to life. Posts about once a month and the posts tend to be on the technical Marketo side. @EtumosLLC Visit Site 9) Fill the Funnel Miles Austin spent 30 years in B2B Sales and Leadership roles. In addition to helping business with their demand gen needs, he now writes blog posts on email marketing for Fill the Funnel. Miles posts about Sales & Marketing tools and ways that they can be applied in your business. He also has a steady following of 11K. @milesaustin Visit Site 10) The Funnelholic Craig Rosenberg is the co-founder and Chief Analyst of TOPO. His blog was created so he can have fun talking about all things revenue. The Funnelholic focuses on sales, marketing and everything in between. @funnelholic Visit Site 11) Heinz Marketing Matt Heinz is all over the place speaking on the importance of digital marketing. His blog covers everything from marketing automation to best practices in sales. @HeinzMarketing Visit Site 12) KissMetrics Although this site is not marketing automation at all, I had to drop it somewhere because their blog is just so good. They have great articles on analytics. @KISSmetrics Visit Site 13) Marketing Land Marketing Land is a general digital marketing site that covers a wide variety of topics. It also has a great marketing technology section. @Marketingland Visit Site 14) Marketing Profs One of the biggest marketing blogs/portals on the web run by Ann Handley and team. Not marketing automation focused but it’s a must read for content marketers. 600K+ members. @MarketingProfs Visit Site 15) Marketing Rockstar Guides Don’t expect fancy graphics but Marketing Rockstar Guides gets my vote for the top Marketo-focused tips and tricks blog out there. Targeted at the Marketo practitioner. It is run by Marketo Champion, Josh Hill, and you get a 844+ page guide for signing up for blog updates–try reading that on the beach. @jdavidhill Visit Site 16) Marketing Tech Blog This blog was founded by Douglas Karr and has over 75K subscribers.  It covers mainly marketing in new media but has a section focused on marketing automation. @douglaskarr Visit Site 17) Money Ball Marketer Channeling your inner Brad Pitt, Moneyball Marketer is Zak Pines’s blog on data-driven demand generation and marketing best practices. Great blog to check out once a month as it updates once or twice monthly. @MoneyballMktr Visit Site 18) Relevance Chad Pollitt cofounded this site and grew it to 50K subscribers in six months (Read amazing story here). The blog brings in industry experts to share expertise on content marketing and promotion. @relevance Visit Site 19) RevEngineInsider You are reading this post so you already know marketing technology is important to us. We cover everything digital that is related to moving leads through the funnel. At a deeper level, we also cover top tips for organizations leveraging Marketo. Primary contributor is Marketo Champion Jeff Coveney. @RevEngineMarket Visit Site 20) The Sales Blog Digital blog with a Sales focus. Anthony Iannarinno is a publishing machine and gives great Sales process tips EVERY day. I keep waiting for him to miss a day but he’s the Cal Ripken Jr. of Sales blog writing. Technology is not a big focus of Anthony’s but his Sales process stuff is vital to overall marketing automation and funnel success. @iannarino Visit Site 21) The Sales Benchmark Index Blog Here’s another site that doesn’t quite fit into “digital marketing technology.” However SBI’s content on Sales and Marketing methodologies and best practices is central to any company trying to develop a marketing funnel. Updates daily. SBI delivers some great  podcasts too such as this one: Case Study: Aligning the Marketing Strategy to the Skills of the Marketing Staff @MakingTheNumber Visit Site 22) The Sales Lion Blog Mark Sheridan runs this inbound marketing blog with a Hubspot focus. Great podcasts also. In six years, Mark went from pool seller to content marketing king. That’s a career path you wouldn’t expect.Read more on Mark’s pool story success. @TheSalesLion Visit Site 23) Sirius Decisions Sirius Decisions is where all the smart people go to try to get smarter about optimizing the revenue funnel. You sometimes need a MIT degree to completely get all the concepts but their forward thinking enables you to plan for the future. Jay Famico is the go-to guy for technology and services so make sure to follow his posts. @JayFamico @siriusdecisions Visit Site 24) SmartInsights Blog This blog (and membership site) offers tons ofactionable digital marketing advice. There are plenty of planning templates, ebooks and online training courses. Some are no cost, others have a fee. There is a no-cost weekly newsletter I’d recommend signing up for. 80K+ members. Co-founded by Dr. Dave Chaffey, Dan Bosomworth and Stu Miller. @SmartInsights Visit Site 25) Topo Blog Topo Blog is UK-based and covers a mixture of sales, marketing and technology data and research. @scottalbro Visit Site 26) Top Rank Marketing Lee Odden’s blog is another extremely strong content marketing focused blog. I almost didn’t include it because the site is heavy on the social flavor and light on digital technology. The content stuff is just too good to leave off. Attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors and has over 50,000 subscribers. @toprank @leeodden Visit Site

The CMO behind Equinox’s bold and provocative ad campaign

AOL’s CMO Allie Kline talks strategy, content and code

Why Cisco CMO Blair Christie embraces the Internet of Things

Q&A with Kevin Krone, CMO of Southwest

Lessons for Transforming the Way Your Company Communicates

Ardath Albee, B2B Marketing Strategist Marketing Interactions, Inc, presentation from Marketo Summit 2015

INDUSTRY NEWS Mobile In Mind: Thoughts on the Present and Future of Mobile Marketing Forbes Across all industries, brands are spending more time on researching and implementing mobile marketing strategies. From mobile advertising and mobile wallets to mobile sales mechanisms and reward-based mobile advertising, executives are realizing the current benefits and planning for the future opportunities mobile has in store. Interestingly, researchers have estimated that consumers interact with their mobile devices over 100 times a day. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to determine at what point during these interactions is the consumer most likely to engage with mobile advertising. Internet of Things Data Could Fuel Ad Targeting Ad Age IOT has promised to turn people’s everyday interactions with everyday items into data for logistical and marketing applications. The industry is approaching the next stage of connected appliances and food packaging. This means marketers need to figure out where all this information will go and how it will be used. Marketers Should Use Data to Build Trust with Customers, Says Report by EY and Forbes Insights Forbes Customers have more information available than ever before to assist them in their buying decisions, and winning customer loyalty has become an increasing challenge for companies. Less than a third of CMOs and marketing executives fully understand where trust is eroded. In fact, 51 percent of executives believe that there is a significant opportunity in the use of analytics for customer insight and in expanding the use of external data sources. However, only 37% say they have the capability to use analytics to tailor communications and outreach to the customer. This is a low number considering that many marketing executives see personalization as the next big trend in marketing. Age of the Data-Devoted Marketer Information Age Big data is disrupting the way marketers understand and interact with their audience. However, while analytics will help to identify targets, and understand customers, it must never be at the expense of creativity. This means having the ability to act intuitively and not necessarily because it’s laser-targeted at a key audience. The article highlights that in order to be successful today, marketers must wear many different hats. This means that they are analytical and data-driven, while having a strong grasp of brand, storytelling and experiential marketing.