Marketing Automation Weekly Wrap-up - 2009/10/23

Some interesting posts this week from the B2B marketing and marketing automation universe. I haven’t yet seen the start of prediction posts for the coming year, but as it’s almost November, I’m eagerly awaiting those. I have had some fascinating conversations lately with some very smart folks in the industry, and the year ahead should prove to be interesting and very different than anything we’ve experienced before if those conversations prove accurate. I hope you enjoy this week’s selection of posts.



John Caddell on Customers are Talking with a quick but important reminder that B2B customers are very different than consumers because of the various constituents we must deal with. Feedback from the groups or individuals we deal with every day is not the same as feedback from the whole user base
http://caddellinsightgroup.com/blog2/2009/10/how-b2b-customers-talk/


Chris Henneghan on Schubert’s B2B Marketing Blog takes a contrarian view at the idea of Crowdsourced creative marketing campaigns, especially in a B2B marketing context
http://blog.schubert.com/2009/10/04/crowd-control/



Scott Brinker on Chief Marketing Technologist looks as the balance of automation and human insight within marketing operations and borrows some lessons from the military’s use of UAVs like the Predator – automation, but in the context of a dynamic, ever-changing, and unpredictable environment. Like marketing, but with missiles:
http://www.chiefmartec.com/2009/10/marketing-operations-and-the-predator.html


Jamie Wallace on Savvy B2B drew lessons from her toddler’s kindergarten’s ability to carefully nurture, build trust, and overcome objections with one of the most discerning demographics, that can be very relevant to our thinking about lead nurturing.
http://savvyb2bmarketing.com/blog/entry/296121/marketing-with-the-kindergarten-conversion-technique


Suaad Sait from the B2B Lead builds a three part marketing maturing framework that gives a comprehensive view of what marketers need to look at in assessing their own marketing maturity and effectiveness. The three posts work well together and give a lot of great topics to think about:

Measuring what Matters: http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/marketing-effectiveness-assessment-measuring-what-matters-assessment/

Effectiveness and Marketing Execution: http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/marketing-effectiveness-marketing-execution-assessment/

Marketing Database Assessment: http://blog.reachforce.com/database-marketing/marketing-effectiveness-marketing-database-assessment/


Michelle Bowles from the Online Marketing Blog set out a framework for a content marketing strategy. As a structure for thinking about what content you are creating, for whom, and why, this framework gets you thinking about the right questions and issues:
http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/10/content-strategy/


I hope you enjoyed the continueing conversation on marketing automation and B2B marketing as much as I did.