The Technology-Driven Restructuring of Sales and Marketing

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Uncategorized

Though some of our clients embraced marketing operations earlier than others, I still feel like 2012 has been the year of marketing automation. Last year, some of our customers didn’t even register this as important to their specific program goals and now most would agree that investing in operations and automation is a new requirement. I think by the time 2013 comes around, the budget line items for backend marketing operations, campaign tracking, and marketing business intelligence will have doubled—and not just in the enterprise space. Tech companies like SalesFusion, Hubspot, and Influitive will make organizing, automating, and tracking marketing easier for midsized organizations as well. That is good news for our customers large and small. Projectline has a reputation for marketing and BI services that are best when integrated with world-class marketing automation tools. We love them. We need them. We master them. And so should you.

If you are in the Pacific Northwest and your company hasn’t fully embraced the new world of marketing operations. Or, if it has started, and you aren’t sure where to jump in, there’s an upcoming event that might be perfect for you. Our local Puget Sound chapter of the American Marketing Association is hosting a very timely luncheon: “Wake-Up Call: Marketing and Sales 3.0 – How to Survive the Changing Landscape.” The flyer for this event only came across my desk late last week, but Projectline immediately jumped on as a sponsor. Because we feel that this topic is critical for all marketers—across all segments, all disciplines, B2B and B2C—we knew we needed to be part of the conversation.

Brett Clay, Award-winning marketer and author of Selling Change, 101 Secrets for Growing Sales by Leading Change, will be speaking on this ongoing shift to automate and integrate sales and marketing. He will help answer questions that many of us have, such as:

  • What will be the new required competencies in Marketing and Sales 3.0?
  • How should executives and marketers prepare their organizations and themselves for these changes?
  • What is the impact of Marketing and Sales 3.0 on this year’s marketing budget?

Projectline will be there with bells on, to share what we know and, of course, offer services to those who need nuance behind the tools of automation. I hope most Northwest marketers will take the chance to learn more about this new world and join us for lunch!

See you there.

Weekly Roundup: 5/25/12

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Marketing Musings

Welcome to the Projectline Weekly Roundup. We know that the week can move pretty fast. Since Fridays sometimes offer a chance for a breather, we wanted to share links to some of the articles we liked this week. As always, we’d love to get your take, so feel free to leave a comment or chat us up on Twitter. Happy reading and have a great weekend!

Weekly Roundup

Customer Engagement
How to Find Your Most Valuable Customer—In this post, the author talks about how your disenchanted customers can actually improve your business. Of course your fans are important, but disheartened customers can often teach you more about your business and how to make it better.

Social Media Influencing Sales—Projectline’s Nick Martin recently presented at the International Customer Reference Program Conference in Boston. He penned this blog post as a follow up to that talk. There is a some great stuff here for customer reference professionals.

Content Strategy
How to Build and Operate a Content Marketing Machine—This artcle covers the process, the editorial calendar, and everything else you wanted to know about setting up a content marketing operation. It even comes with a nice graphic describing the process.

Continue reading →

CONFAB 2012 Cliff’s Notes: Visual Thinking, Content Down to a Science, and My Summer Reading List

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Content Development, Content Strategy, Marketing Musings

I spent three enlightening days at CONFAB: The Content Strategy Conference 2012 in Minneapolis last week. The sun was shining and folks involved with content and strategy worldwide came to share, learn, and mingle. I met some great people, learned a lot, and was immersed in the world of content strategy.

With references to Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and Sherlock, I felt at home–literally. Like watching cable with friends and discussing favorite shows during commercial breaks, there was a sense of camaraderie. Kristina Halvorson, CEO and Founder of Brain Traffic, said in her welcome that CONFAB is a rare opportunity when all those involved with content strategy get to be with their people. Indeed. I felt I was with a kindred bunch of folks who are all keen on the future of content in the digital space and read uncommon yet fascinatingly applicable books.

Over three days, I went to many sessions and took enough notes to fill several scrolling pages. Each was thought provoking and a few really stuck with me. Below are a few of my notes from two of those sessions:

Be Vivid: How to Make Content Work — Even When Words Don’t Work – Dan Roam
Roam discussed how it is important to really think about the content we create so that it doesn’t become “a wall of noise.” He stresses that we need to have enough purpose behind our content so that folks are willing to take the time to read it. The content needs to be “vivid.” It needs to be “absolutely clear because it is expressed with both words and pictures.” Using the metaphor of a sooty lump of coal turned sparkling diamond, Roam described what the pneumonic, “vivid,” means in a world where we don’t rely so heavily on words.

Vivid Thinking
Vi = visual
V = verbal
Id – interdependent

Continue reading →

Picture of the Week: 5/21/12

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Pic of the Week

Every weekday morning at 10:42 am, our team is invited to send in a picture of where they are, what they’re doing, or who they’re with. We post our favorite picture from each week and share its story here.

10:42 May 17, 2012. In Seattle! Our client cards just arrived!

Sneak peek. These are the cards we will be sending to each of our incredible clients next month. This year we are donating in their name to The Genesis Project—a group dedicated to giving hope to victims of domestic sex trafficking. How do you show your appreciation for clients, colleagues, vendors, and others in your professional network?

Weekly Roundup: 5/18/12

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Marketing Musings

Welcome to the Projectline Weekly Roundup. We know that the week can move pretty fast. Since Fridays sometimes offer a chance for a breather, we wanted to share links to some of the articles we liked this week. As always, we’d love to get your take, so feel free to leave a comment or chat us up on Twitter. Happy reading and have a great weekend!

Weekly Roundup

Content Strategy
Intel iQ—This content portal by Intel just launched this week. It is an interesting method of content marketing but I’m not totally sure how Intel is trying to position it. It is 100% worth checking out.

Social Media
GM Drops Facebook Ads—This has been a big story on the web this week. I think people are keying into the story around the fact that if a huge company like GM doesn’t see the value of Facebook ads, what does that say about Facebook ads? It is an interesting question, and every company needs to look and see how Facebook ads are performing for them.

Customer Evidence
#ICRPC—If you missed the International Customer Reference Community event this past week, review the hashtag on Twitter for some great insights and commentary.

Projectline Posts
Your Personal Marketing Accent—This is a great explanation by Samantha Smith of why marketers all have a slightly different way of doing things. This is a great read and might help you see the valuable differences in experience and perspective that exist within your own team.

Your Personal Marketing Accent

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Marketing Musings

Every individual has some sort of accent, whether in their native language or that of a language they’ve learned; even Seattleites have an accent, albeit a very slight one. Regardless, there is something unique about how each and every person communicates.

When learning a new language, people usually pick up the accent of the region in which they’re living. I experienced this while learning Spanish in southeastern Spain while sharing an apartment with students from five other Spanish-speaking countries. I acquired distinct inflections unique to both the region I was in and the people I was spending time with.

OK—so how does this relate to marketing? People at Projectline come from a vast array of backgrounds. We all apply the inflections we’ve gained from our education, professional training, and outside experiences to our work. The rich diversity of these experiences helps us better translate our clients’ vision into marketing success—whether we’re assisting with content strategy, facilitating customer communities, or analyzing campaign data.

For me, the joy of marketing is that, much like language, it’s a dynamic, ever-evolving discipline. And, just like mastering a spoken language demands an appreciation for nuance, proficiency in marketing requires the ability to become conversant in its many genres. By creating a team that blends knowledge of the different categories or dialects of marketing—a team composed of people from all around the world who have different marketing skill sets—we’re able to flexibly meet a wider spectrum of client requests.

Projectline makes a distinct effort in recruiting individuals who can bring a unique accent to the team, creating opportunities to expand the shared knowledge we apply to every client engagement. Just as if I had learned only one dialect of Spanish, I wouldn’t be able to communicate as effectively with Spanish-speakers from different parts of the world, so do we emphasize a holistic approach when it comes to marketing fluency.

Fortunately—for both our clients and our work environment—each of our employees brings his or her own marketing accent to the table, providing the dynamic marketing flair that Projectline is known for. What kind of accent are you contributing to your company?

Chat with me about this or any other b2b marketing topic on Twitter @_samantha_smith.