Marketing Automation Weekly Wrap-up - 2009/08/17

Some great posts last week from the marketing automation and B2B marketing blogging community. I've enjoyed a lot, so it's hard to pick out just 10 as favorites. It's interesting how trends tend to surface as the "Cash for Clunkers" theme seems to be present in a few posts this week.


Scott Gillum (LinkedIn) from B2B Sales & Marketing Knowledge Sharing thinks about the future of articles in print publications and magazines as the formats, lengths, and chaotic flows of Twitter, blogs, and online communication become more mainstream:
http://b2bknowledgesharing.blogspot.com/2009/08/future-look-of-articles-blogs-and-im.html



Scott Brinker (@chiefmartec) from the Chief Marketing Technologist Blog with a thought provoking piece on the changing nature of branding in a social media world. Social media may be exposing various instances of mismatch between a brand promise and its reality, but there remains a compelling argument for brand relevance:
http://www.chiefmartec.com/2009/08/branding-is-dead-long-live-branding.html



Tim Wilson (@tgwilson) from Gilligan on Data looks at data inaccuracies and how they add up – some great thinking on the risk inherent in bad data vs the risk of inaction and data paralysis - and a strong argument not to strive for absolute perfeaction:
http://www.gilliganondata.com/index.php/2009/08/10/rare-x-rare-x-rare-in-customer-data-management/



Carlos Vidal (@cmvidal) with a guest post on Demand Gen Report looks at the need to included the time taken to close a deal as a key part of a Cost per Opportunity metric:
http://demandgenreport.blogspot.com/2009/08/lead-source-effectiveness-allocate.html



Tom Pick (@tompick) from Web Market Central talks about Aquent's combination of Email marketing and social media, as an example of one company "doing it right" in combining the two styles of marketing:
http://webmarketcentral.blogspot.com/2009/08/social-media-email-marketing-one.html



Amy Hawthorne (@ahawthorne) on the B2B Lead Blog makes an argument to look at your marketing database to see if it's more of a clunker than you might have realized. The requisite cash-for-clunkers sales offer is of course there, but it would have been odd if it was missing...
http://blog.reachforce.com/database-marketing/got-a-cluncker-of-a-leads-databasetrade-up/



Paul Dunay (@pauldunay) of Buzz Marketing for Technology raises an interesting thought in a "Cost Per Advocate" model to replace cost per click or cost per impression. Advocates are key, but are we just buying targeted ads, or really winning them over as an advocate?:
http://buzzmarketingfortech.blogspot.com/2009/08/cost-per-advocate-new-cpa-model.html



Heather Foeh (@heatherfoeh) from Marketing Insights looks at using a marketing automation process not just to create leads for the channel, but also to follow up and make sure that your channel partners have worked with each lead effectively:
http://marketinginsights.eloqua.com/2009/08/12/checking-up-on-the-channel/



Steve Kellogg (LinkedIn) from Crowds2Crowds with our second Cash for Clunkers piece - an analysis of progressive landing pages on various motor company sites, which makes a great point about visitor interaction:
http://crowds2crowds.blogspot.com/2009/08/cash-for-clunkers.html



Jamie Wallace (@suddenlyjamie) from The Savvy B2B blog makes an argument for thinking in terms of a buying process, not a selling process, through her push to drop the "hunting" metaphors we tend to use, which imply a selling process:
http://savvyb2bmarketing.com/blog/entry/202551/social-media-reality-check-you%E2%80%99re-not-a-big-game-hunter



I hope you enjoy these posts as much as I did. There are a lot of great writers out there in the marketing automation and B2B marketing community, and they each have an interesting perspective to share.