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Kenyon Blunt

10 Marketing Trends for 2011

The meaning of marketing continues to evolve and how that changes the way we engage with our customers. Trends are emerging in customer engagement, how we integrate data, how we leverage marketing analytics. As marketers, we are also seeing social media usage mature, changes in mobile marketing and increased conversation about customer privacy. Customer touchpoint becomes a priority and understanding how all of these trends can work together will be the key to marketing success in 2011.

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Can Lead Generation Become More than “Frosting and Cherries?”

I recently called on a client and he described his vision of lead generation as “frosting and cherries.”  Let me explain.  His view is that the current state of lead generation is dead.  Salespeople in the “Internet world” have relied on leads from marketing which are neither good nor productive.  In his opinion, salespeople need [...]

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Is Multichannel Marketing Really “Dual-Channel” Marketing?

With the clamor in the marketing world about multichannel marketing, it recently dawned on me that most so-called multichannel marketing is more like “dual-channel” marketing. The campaigns that I’ve seen usually combine two symbiotic channels such as website and email, website and bricks and mortar, email and phone, direct mail and phone, print and PURL, etc. My guess is that way over half of all multichannel campaigns actually involve only two channels.

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Unified Marketing: Buzzword or Bellwether?

Unified Marketing is all about unifying the data across multiple marketing channels. I often cite the statistic from Forrester that more data was created last year than in the history of world up until now. What happens to it? Most of it is garbage and what is good is seldom, if ever, put into an integrated customer database housing both online and offline date. In this article we share some of the obstacles that hold brands back from a truly unified marketing approach.

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Customer Engagement: A New Spin on Customer Intimacy

A while ago, one of my advisors challenged me to read an old business book, The Discipline of Market Leaders, by Treacy and Wiersma. It was first published in 1995, and I didn’t think it had much relevance to today’s fast-changing world of marketing strategy. So it wasn’t until recently, when I was stuck on a 10 ½ hour flight, that I opened the book. The book detailed three dimensions of competitive strategy: value leadership, product leadership and customer intimacy. And it was in the latter section that I was astounded by something written 15 years ago and what I perceived as a foreshadowing of today’s enthusiasm for customer engagement.

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Being Small Is Cool Again.

With the changes taking place in marketing today, there’s no better time to be small and agile. In fact, small marketers are “cool” again because nimbleness is the number one skill to overcome more marketing channels, new technologies, a changing consumer, expanding markets and all of the other forces shaping the world of Marketing 2.0.

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Rx for Your Web Analytics

Do you remember in business school when you were presented a case study and there were always detours called “symptoms” which really weren’t the underlying issues but instead pointed you to the real problem? That’s what we have here. This inability to measure ROI for online channels is a function of the lack of skilled web analytics resources and not an inherent problem with web analytics.

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Confessions of a Wannabe Thought Leader: 5 Questions I Can’t Answer

We are scrambling to launch social media marketing initiatives so we can participate in dialogues with potential consumers who will view us as thought leaders and eventually buy our products and services. On the other hand, we are diminishing the very notion of an expert by the millions of us who are trying to do so. As you know, questions lead to more questions and now I’ve come up with 5 which I cannot answer.

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New Agency Skills for New Times Or The 3 Cornerstones of the Digital Age

I believe there are three cornerstones to Marketing 2.0: 1) CRM/data, 2) web analytics and 3) digital/social marketing skills including merging online and offline data. Who has these skills? These capabilities are provided to clients in a hodge-podge of services in what Forrester calls a “web of confusion.” As marketing services providers, ad agencies, interactive agencies, technology providers and direct marketing firms all start looking alike, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for clients to tell us apart. So much so, the CMO study states, that one solution for marketers is to start bringing these skills in-house, either by training existing staff or hiring new ones.

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What’s Up with Employee Satisfaction? 5 Themes from Motivation 2.0

Today I take a slight detour from my usual subjects of marketing analytics and multichannel marketing. Three converging events have me questioning employee satisfaction. While I was on vacation, I read Daniel Pink’s new book, Drive (http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594488843). Then, I stumbled across a blog from Harvard Business School, Why Are Fewer and Fewer U.S. Employees Satisfied with Their Jobs? (http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6404.html. And, coincidentally, we did our biannual employee engagement and satisfaction survey at SIGMA Marketing Group. Only 45% of workers in the U.S. are satisfied with their jobs, according to the Conference Board, so what did I gain from this immersion in employee motivation that can help me as a manager improve employee engagement?

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