Each week we present a collection of some of the best marketing tips, guides, and best practices from thought leaders around the blogosphere to help you stay informed, hone your craft, and improve your marketing efforts. Enjoy!
1. Two Key Building Blocks for Creating a Marketing Dashboard
Jon Miller, VP of Marketing for Marketo, had one of the more compelling (and eye-opening) presentations I’ve seen in a long, long time at one their regional Revenue Rockstar Roadshows last year. Essentially, his keynote concentrated on marketing metrics – how they’ve changed, how they haven’t, and how most marketers truly get it wrong so frequently because we tend to approach them the wrong way. If you were unable to make one of the events and catch his presentation, fear not. You can download the EBook here. This post from Marketing Profs is a wonderful addition to the best practices provided by Miller and helps you start thinking about how to create the dashboards that capture key data and what elements should be included. Two Key Building Blocks for Creating a Marketing Dashboard
2. Content Marketing: Theory vs. Practice
You could say it’s because of the incredibly pervasive growth and adoption of social media. You could equally say it’s because of the fundamental shift in buyer behavior those elements, and more, have contributed to. And you’d be right on both counts. The end result is that, as marketers, failing to incorporate content marketing, or applying it without thought to strategy, is simply no longer an option. This post from the Marketing Interactions Blog is a wonderful guide to help you with what is often the most challenging aspect of content marketing – getting started – and highlighting the questions you should be asking when developing your strategy. “Without knowing your buyers, where’s your focus? On your products and company, of course. Because that’s what you know. This is why there’s so much crappy content floating around in the ether.” Content Marketing: Theory vs. Practice
3. Social Media Cheat Sheet 2012
Originally published on CMO.com in 2010, this handy infographic breaks down ten of the primary social media outlets and ranks them according to how well they help you with customer influence, brand exposure, traffic to your site, and SEO value. Good stuff. Social Media Cheat Sheet 2012
4. 3 Posts to help you with the new Facebook Timeline
For good or ill, today is the day we’re all migrated over to Facebook’s new Timeline design. Doubtless you’ve seen a mountain of information to help you get ready in the preceding weeks, but if you’re still wondering how to best leverage the new look for your business page here are three resources that might provide some answers (and things to avoid).6 Ways Companies Can Take Advantage of New Facebook Timeline (via live btwn the lines), 7 things Brands Need to Know About the Facebook Timeline (via Eloqua), and Your Cheat Sheet for the New Facebook Page Timeline Design [Infographic] (via HubSpot).
5. 4 Lead Nurturing Campaigns to Run After the Sales Cycle
We’re strong proponents of the value of targeting and segmentation. As an organization that provides ideas and solutions that help our customers drive conversions and increase revenue we’d be pretty silly not to, right? This post, another from Eloqua, digs into four methods of segmenting your nurture campaigns through a lens you might not have considered before – after the sales cycle. FYI, additional segmentation ideas for your nurture campaigns can be found here. 4 Lead Nurturing Campaigns to Run After the Sales Cycle
A little extra…
TED has undergone a bit of an interesting evolution over the last couple of years, but, by and large, I’m still a big fan. In fact, one of the most inspiring presentations on creativity I’ve ever seen was Elizabeth Gilbert’s talk about nurturing creativity. In it, she examined the transition from the mystical to the rational, the creative process, and grabbing a poem by the tail. It’s lovely and brilliant, and I highly recommend it if you’ve not seen it before (you can find it here). This video, more current and clocking in at a little more than 2 minutes, presents marketing veteran Dan Cobley as he does something as surprising as it is charming – examining the lessons we marketers can learn from an unlikely source: physics. Physics and Marketing, a Video by Dan Cobley
