Marketing Automation Weekly Wrap-up - 2009/09/25

It’s been more than a week since I wrote my last weekly wrap-up, and that is more a reflection on me than on the writing this week. There are again a lot of great posts out there this week, and I enjoyed reading many more than I was able to highlight here. I hope you enjoy some of this week’s highlights as much as I did


Laura Ramos (B2B Marketing Posts) published her long awaited, and very well thought out Lead Management Market Overview. If you are thinking about an investment in marketing automation or lead management, this guide is well worth reading. Laura’s insights and depth really show through well.
http://b2bmarketingpost.com/2009/09/22/lead-management-market-overview-published/


Dianna Huff (B2B MarCom Writer blog) writes about the challenges, but ultimate success, of a B2b video testimonial campaign with details on how to get approvals, how to plan, and how to structure questions in a non-salesy way to allow customers to speak freely.
http://marcom-writer-blog.com/2009/09/22/b2b-video-waters-customer-testimonial-campaign-a-hit/


Sirius Decisions reports on a trend that Inside sales is on the rise in 2010 – due to cultural acceptance, better technology, and budgetary constraints.
http://www.siriusdecisions.com/live/home/document.php?dA=C1522.78


David Raab (Customer Experience Matrix) reviews the recent Adobe/Omniture acquisition acquisition and what it means for marketers, Adobe, and Omniture. David takes the position that this will squeeze the marketing automation space, but most of the comments disagree with that view.
http://customerexperiencematrix.blogspot.com/2009/09/adobe-buys-omniture-good-for-marketers.html


Brian Carroll (B2B Lead Generation blog), as part of his series on lead generation, talks about developing and intensifying your ideal customer profile – mostly based around pains you can solve for them, and their motivations, rather than demographics or firmographics.
http://blog.startwithalead.com/weblog/2009/09/develop-your-ideal-customer-profile.html


Adam Needles (Propelling Brands) does a deep dive into the nature of the changing B2B buyer and the evidence for that change. As with all of Adam’s posts, this reflects his history as an analyst, and truly dives into the data and factual evidence.
http://propellingbrands.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/nailing-down-evidence-that-the-nature-of-the-b2b-buyer-has-changed/


Tom Pick (WebMarketCentral) writes a posts on Product Launches, and why a Rolling Thunder approach may be a better idea than the typical Lightning Bolt approach we often use.
http://webmarketcentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/better-way-to-launch-new-products.html


Andy Hasselwander (B2B Marketing Confidential) looks at the buying process, and our ability to facilitate it, from the perspective of a “barrier removal strategy” – with an interesting comparison of the B2C and B2B Apple strategy.
http://b2bmarketingconfidential.blogspot.com/2009/09/barrier-removal-marketing-strategy.html


Carlos Hidalgo (Annuitas Group), writing on the DemandGen Report, gives an overview of the processes to audit in looking at a marketing automation investment. He makes a very strong case to look at the process first, and not assume that technology can fix a broken process.
http://demandgenreport.blogspot.com/2009/09/process-audit-needed-to-identify-breaks.html


Ardath Albee (Marketing Interactions) makes the case that lead nurturing is very different than stringing together existing marketing campaigns – it needs to lead buyers on a well thought out journey, rather than just communicating frequent messages.
http://marketinginteractions.typepad.com/marketing_interactions/2009/09/lead-nurturing-is-not-about-campaigns.html