Blog

Sometimes, you don't have time to write a full-on blog post. But when an editorial calendar dictates publishing a post, curated content can help fill the gap between longer thought leadership. A well-designed editorial calendar will blend original thought leadership, company/product news, and responses to curated content. Doing so provides a steady flow of diverse content… Continue reading Careful Curation for Quick Content

While marketers sing a chorus of "Content, content, content!" many B2B buyers are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of new blog posts, infographics, tweets, and other bits and bobs. This steady stream of stuff is useful for gaining exposure and brand recognition, but it often fails to generate leads or sales. That's why a renewed focus on true thought leadership warms my writer's heart.

"Who are you with? What do you do?" I heard these questions a lot when I left IBM - a well-established centenarian brand - for SpotMe. Whether you're selling to customers or other businesses, building your brand and gaining name recognition is key. Potential customers want assurance they're doing business with a stable, established company. But they also want to know a bit about your personality.

Meetings are on the mind lately. In June, I left IBM for SpotMe, who makes a mobile app designed to make meetings more interactive and engaging. As I’ve learned the industry and the players, I’m gaining appreciation for just how important meetings and events are. Throughout my career, I’ve helped plan various meetings, from small… Continue reading A Case for Meetings – If They’re Engaging

Where's the line between useful personalization and creepiness? Unfortunately, it's not a simple answer. But as we amass more information about our customers and try to build closer relationships with them, we need to think like a creep. Chad White of ExactTarget just published a nice post that explains 6 different degrees of email personalization. We've… Continue reading Treading the “Creep” Line in Personalization

Is the traditional marketing funnel dead? Or has it just morphed into a different shape? Last week, I attended a half-day conference with the cringe-worthy name, "The B2B Funnelmentals Tour." Presented by a marketing platform company, Bizo, the B2B-focused agenda was right up my alley. The premise was simple: in a traditional marketing funnel, people at… Continue reading Funnels, Hourglasses, or Loops: Targeting Customers-to-Be

  Innovate. Move quickly. Take risks. Don't be afraid of failure - but learn from it. These messages resonated loud and clear and last week's IBM Impact conference in Las Vegas. I attended as a beat reporter for the Application Infrastructure track, attending sessions on developers, customer experience, and building a Composable Business. You can… Continue reading Innovation Through Iteration – With a Side of Bacon

The fine folks at Business2Community have compiled a fantastic list of 83 newish statistics from across the digital marketing world. It's definitely worth taking some time to read through some of their findings and their related studies. They stem from a variety of sources, including Social Media Today, B2B Marketing, eMarketer, Smart Insights,  Fast Company,… Continue reading Quick Hits: 83 Digital Stats to Drive Your Plans

When you try to target an ad to every possible audience by being everything, you tend to say exactly nothing. I've long fought cliches and buzzwords. But Dissolve, a company that makes stock footage, combined the very best cliches with a fantastic script from Kendra Eash at McSweeney's. The result? Brilliant. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YBtspm8j8M This could be a commercial for any company that… Continue reading Trying to Be Everything…