Ian Michiels

Drip campaigns are delivered based on pre-determined time intervals while trigger marketing campaigns are initiated based on prospect behavior.

There are two primary tactics for nurturing leads: drip campaigns and trigger marketing campaigns.  Seventy-nine percent (79%) of respondents from the recent Q3'11 Lead Scoring and Prioritization survey indicated they had used drip marketing tactics.  Most email marketing tools provide drip marketing capabilities which allow marketers to configure business rules that automate the delivery of emails in pre-configured time intervals.   Drip campaigns are most frequently utilized to augment the sales cycle with automated email communications.  Top Performers indicate segmentation and demographic targeting yield some of the best results from drip marketing tactics, primarily because frequent and relevant communications are more likely to engage...

Last month Salesforce.com hosted its annual Dreamforce Conference in San Francisco.  As usual, vendors and customers came out in force.  Just 2 years ago, SFDC was the first enterprise cloud computing company to reach $1B in annual revenue.  As of 2011, SFDC is trending at over $2B in revenue; that’s impressive growth!  The energy at the event explains a lot about SFDC’s success- happy customers, a strong partner ecosystem, and flawless strategic execution make me wonder how SFDC seems to make Dreamforce bigger and better every year.

 With 250+ vendors sponsoring the event, there’s a lot to talk about.  I’ve been asked a number of times what “stood out” for me at the event, so I thought I would post some noteworthy comments on the things that stood out.

iPads Are Like Opinions. Everyone Has One.

Most of us are familiar with the Wizard of Oz.  Dorthy and her little dog Toto are swept away from Kansas in a cyclone and find themselves in the Land of Oz where she must follow a yellow brick road to the Emerald City and find a way home.

Like Dorthy, most B2B marketers also find themselves on an undesirable journey in a foreign place- swept away by a cyclone of channel proliferation, 24×7 access to information, and a highly competitive environment.  In this environment the traditional disconnected approach to sales and marketing simply cannot generate the type of performance that is expected from the board of directors, the CEO, and shareholders.  Sales and marketing leaders still struggle with wrapping their arms around these challenges and effectively leveraging the right tools, tactics, and strategies.  We need an Emerald City, a tangible, attainable destination for our sales and marketing journey; we need Revenue Performance Management.

Social media is transforming the digital experience into a human experience.  Buyers have more influence than ever before.  They are informed by online, offline, mobile, and of course each other on social media websites.  

Naturally, many organizations are still trying to crack the code on engaging target audiences in social realms.  A recent report from BtoB Marketer suggested that 93% of B2B organizations are utilizing at least one social media website for customer engagement.  Yet, Gleanster research data suggests the vast majority of organisations do not see demonstrable benefits from these efforts.  This begs the question: How do organizations determine if and when to use social media for inbound and/or outbound engagement?  The answer is, they don't.  Or, they don't do a good job vetting out the best practices and most appropriate execution of social media campaigns.  Even Top Performers struggle to execute social campaigns with purpose, measurement, and structure....