Familiarity, ease-of-use, and cost trump “cool” when marketers decide which communications channel to use. That’s the take-away from a recent survey which looks at some of the factors that weigh into a marketer’s decision on which communications channel to use. Pity the poor marketer who has to decide how to make the best use of time, money, […]
Industry News.
Risky business – or manageable risk?
An interesting question was asked recently during a webinar titled Marketing & Compliance in a Regulated Environment (presentation download — recorded webinar — Q&A). The two-part question came up after one of the panelists said that companies in a regulated environment should “vet” links and comments. The first question was: What do you mean by “vetting” […]
If Words Have Two Meanings
“There’s a sign on the wall, but she wants to be sure ‘Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings…” –Copyright, 1970, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Stairway to Heaven When words have two meanings it can lead to a hit song — or a compliance nightmare. Marketing people tend to like words. And, as […]
Nine in 10 Marketers Use Facebook — Why?
A new study reported in the Social Media Examiner reported that in April, 2011, nine of every 10 corporate marketers said that they used Facebook. That’s 92%, if you like statistics as a percentage of the total. Twitter and LinkedIn rank #2 and #3 on the marketing social media usage charts. That’s not surprising. How many […]
Rules of the Road for Digital and Social Media in Regulated Industries
Anyone who works in insurance, financial services or any other regulated industry already knows that the rules and regulations seem to get more complex every year. So just what are the rules of the road for using the power of digital (web, email, mobile) and social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) to reach prospects and customers? […]
Distributed Marketing Platforms are a “Must Have” for Sales Success
When IBM announced its purchase of Unica last year for $480 million, the company’s press release said that the enterprise marketing management software market was worth $2.5 billion and doubling in size on an annual basis. Why is the market for distributed marketing platforms growing so rapidly as overall marketing budgets are still recovering from […]
Drawing a Distributed Marketing Strategic Roadmap
Recently, there has been a lot of talk about two topics: The increasing complexity of sales organizations. How sales costs are outpacing revenue growth. In highly regulated industries like insurance, health care, pharmaceutical, and financial services, where distributed marketing channels are the norm, it’s even more important to look at ways to resolve these issues […]
Connecting the Distributed Marketing Dots to Drive Revenue
Research giant IDC says that 80% of the content that marketing generates isn’t used by the sales team – and the percentage is even higher in complex distributed marketing and multi-channel environments. In addition, customers tell researchers at Forrester that sales reps aren’t prepared for their initial meeting 50% of the time. Last, but hardly […]
Looking Ahead for Life Insurance Marketing
The 2011 Life Insurance Conference sponsored by LIMRA , LOMA, SOA, and ACLI was one of the most positive events we’ve been to in a long time. One of the best things about the conference was the way industry leaders talked about where the industry will be in 10 years. Here are some take-away points […]
Every Market Is a Buyer’s Market
Industry analyst and pundit David Coursey calls this The Age of Google, and says that the Internet has transformed every market into a buyer’s market, with empowered consumers who can (and do) compare prices and offers from vendors around the globe, and then publish and share their own product reviews and experiences (good or bad) […]
Distributed Marketing Goes Mainstream
Keith Dawson, Senior Editor of The CMO Site, published an interesting look at distributed marketing awhile back. If you haven’t read Keith’s article, check it out here. In the article, he notes that “marketing on demand” – in which a local agent can instantly access, customize and localize corporate marketing assets – is no longer […]