Pontifex: Latin for “bridge builder”. Etymology: from pont-, stem of pons, “bridge” plus -fex, -ficis, root of facere “to make”. Bridge-building is very much the business we find ourselves in. On this side of the chasm: e-mail marketing. Big market (Forrester estimates $3B to $4B). Widely adopted. Best practices and success metrics are widely... View Article
What is the mindset of someone contributing a contact to Jigsaw? It cannot be the case that they know and like the person whose contact information they are uploading. My theory: when a marketing/sales lead gets disqualified for one reason or another, it likely winds up in Jigsaw. When a sales person... View Article
The standard Twitter marketing wisdom is simple: the more followers you have, the bigger your ready-made audience for your marketing messages. The problem is that unless you are a celebrity (or a well-known brand), you are simply not likely to get hundreds of thousands of real followers who are truly... View Article
Over this past year, we have met many prospects that are scared off by the very term “marketing automation”. They have visions of implementing an SAP-like system for marketing and their typical reaction is “We are not ready for THAT!” We have also run into many, many companies that have... View Article
The reality for small businesses is that one or two people may be designated to manage the marketing system, along with their other roles and responsibilities within the organization. A marketing automation system that requires multiple steps and IT intervention to setup and operate is a non-starter. In contrast, Act-On... View Article
Here is the Act-On recipe: Start with a fantastic value proposition: enterprise class all-in-one e-marketing at an SMB price point. Next, focus on de-mystifying and simplifying marketing automation for smaller marketing groups and departments. Finally, make it easy to consume, with month-to-month contracts, no setup fees, and no termination fees.... View Article
The auto industry is not the only one in need of a “Cash for Clunkers” program to get rid of its legacy problems. The government should seriously think about a similar program to let hapless marketing departments out of their long term contracts with vendors pushing dated technology. These older systems... View Article
Is “inbound marketing” (as defined by Hubspot) the best option for your business? Yes. If you are patient. Very patient. The ideas behind “inbound marketing” are hardly new: develop useful and compelling content, publish it on your website or blog, and use SEO to raise your search engine ranking so... View Article
