All B2B marketers know what an MQL is, but what’s an MPL? It’s the Marketing Personalized Lead and it reflects the needs of the individual sales resource to whom the lead will be distributed. This requires marketing to apply the same science to understanding the needs of the sales channel …
Read More »Chief Digital Officers: Bridging the Innovation Gap Between the CIO and CMO
The chief digital officer (CDO) is no longer an exotic, quixotic, flash-in-the-pan role. In some of the world’s leading brands, the CDO is now the general manager of a large digital business unit with significant revenue targets reporting to the CEO. This is one of the fascinating conclusions from IDC’s …
Read More »The 4 big reasons you need an ABM strategy right now
There are four significant trends making account-based marketing (ABM) a major focus for B2B marketers: Rising customer expectations are the most disruptive trend in business today. Customers no longer make categorical distinctions between their personal and professional brand relationships. They expect all companies to provide highly valuable personalized experiences all …
Read More »IDC’s Worldwide Marketing Technology 2014-2018 Forecast: $20 Billion and Growing Fast
Organizations worldwide will spend approximately $20.2 billion on software solutions for marketing in 2014. The marketing software market is expected to grow to more than $32.3 billion in 2018. It will be one of the fastest-growing areas in high tech, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.4%. Over …
Read More »Marketing to the Data Driven Customer
Customers with digital DNA expect data driven value The digital native generation is bringing new expectations to brand relationships. They are mobile first, crowd sourced, and data savvy. Their first and most frequent interaction with your brand will be digital and mobile. They find out what’s cool, what’s trending, and …
Read More »Marketing as a Service (MaaS): The next wave of disruption for marketing tech
Marketing technology has seen a remarkable innovation boom over the past 10 years — so much so that the market now boasts over a thousand vendors that IDC organizes into more than 75 categories. IDC believes this structure is unsustainable and over the next three years the forces of consolidation …
Read More »Measuring Sales and Marketing based on Customer Outcomes
Have you ever used Uber X, the freelance taxi service? Half the cost of a cab and twice the level of service. The cars are immaculate. The drivers are almost overwhelmingly nice. They care deeply about your experience. Not because they want a tip. They want your 5-star feedback. That’s …
Read More »The one framework your CMO must share with your CIO
So many marketing solutions are available that it is very difficult for marketers, chief digital officers, and CIOs to have a holistic view of what they have, what they need and why. IDC has recently created a tool to help – The 2014 Strategic Framework for Marketing Technology. This tool …
Read More »Top 3 customer experience challenges for marketers
Customer experience management is fundamentally about providing a seamless and consistent flow as prospects move through different phases of development and points of contact with a supplier. Delivering on this presumes a level of connectedness that many marketing organizations struggle to achieve. The reason for the struggle is that there …
Read More »Busting the Myth of Sales Disintermediation
Are IT Buyers so self sufficient that sales people will no longer be needed? Much was made in 2013 of the notion that IT Buyers make a large percent of their decision before engaging with sales. Every major market research company had its own number but they all ranged north …
Read More »