The Lead Nurturing 5 & 10: Executive Briefing by DemandGen Report

One of the biggest fumbles among BtoB organizations is the failure to develop formal programs to nurture their leads from the initial inquiry phase through to the point when they are ready to buy. Without the tools and processes in place, companies are unable to build and track their ongoing dialog with both new and old prospects. In a survey conducted by DemandGen Report in 2008, less than 10% of companies had formal lead nurturing strategies and processes in place.

Marketbright has sponsored,a 3-page, executive briefing with DemandGen Report, in which we will highlight 5 of the top reasons why BtoB organizations can’t afford to throw away long-term leads. In addition, we will provide 10 quickideas which can help companies get started down the path to nurturing their prospects from contact to close.

Sign up for the free white paper now: http://www.marketbright.com/go/demandgenexecutivebrief

Joint Webinar: Marketbright & Virtual Causeway

Marketbright is hosting another AGILE Webinar Series event with Virtual Causeway on March 3, 2010. The topic will be Agile Conversations - Real-time Marketing.

We'll discuss the mentality, the tools, and the technology to scale, engage, and close more leads than you can handle by simply using relevant content with Nurture Marketing.

SIGN UP NOW for the free webinar.

2010 Marketing Automation Trends

As we look out to 2010 we see several common issues at B2B marketing companies, and we also see some important trends:

Proving the Value of Marketing to C-Level Executives
Proving ROI is not a new problem for marketing; justifying marketing budget has always been an issue. However, more and more companies are requiring hard metrics from their marketing groups to justify budget spend.

Lack of Resources or In House Expertise
Marketing people are busy; they don’t have time to generate a 15 week nurture program. They barely have time to do a monthly newsletter and keep the blog up to date. A lot of marketing people have limited experience with running email marketing programs or are not up on all the latest tactics to ensure high conversion rates. It is really hard to stay on top of all the different tactics and methods available, and the game is always changing. Marketing automation by itself is not going to fix the problem.

Alignment of Sales and Marketing
The problem of Sales and Marketing alignment is as old as the times. Marketing generates leads, Sales says there were not enough of them, or they were not of good enough quality. Sales is very rarely involved in the planning process, and yet they know better than anybody what messages are selling. So the marketing team generates a bunch of collateral and campaigns that is not tuned for what Sales is doing. Then once Sales gets the leads, Marketing lacks the ability to see what happened to them, and which messages/offers resulted in closed deals.

Changing Landscape – New Tactics and Social Media
The advent of social media and new marketing tactics such as pay-per-click, SEO, and email marketing has marketing people reeling. There is so much information, so many blogs, so many top-10-tips whitepapers, and so many webinars that it is hard to determine the methods that are going to matter, prioritize activities, and focus on what you can actually have an impact on.

Do More With Less
Sales are down, deal size is down, and marketing budgets are down. Marketing people have to do more and more with less and less. In this environment, the technology they use has to be brain dead simple-to-use and also has to automate time-consuming tasks.

Marketbright promotes Agile Marketing Webinar Series and Nurture Marketing for Dummies Guide

5 Ways to Increase Organizational Agility While Enhancing Creativity: http://www.marketbright.com/go/agilemarketing-conceptshare.

Attend this webinar and learn how Marketbright and Conceptshare have partnered to allow rapid planning and collaboration and to help you implement the Agile Method.

Over the next few months, we’ll be sharing more ideas and announcing new product features designed to enable the Agile Marketing Method. You can register and attend the Agile Marketing Webinar Series - http://www.marketbright.com/agile-marketing/

Marketbright is also publishing the official guide to nurture marketing with our upcoming book release Nurture Marketing for Dummies. The book will detail the best practice steps for B2B marketers to implement marketing automation. Sign up now for your free copy of the Nurture Marketing for Dummies Guide:

Marketbright Launches Agile Marketing Webinar Series

Marketbright, a leading on-demand marketing automation platform, today announced the Agile Marketing Webinar Series, which will detail the top issues and game changing trends facing B2B marketing organizations. The series also will outline how companies can take an Agile approach, now commonly used as a best-practice in software development, to improve the nimbleness of their marketing organizations and efforts.

The revolutionary series will be launching in January, 2010.

Sign up for the webinar series today

See the Press Release: MARKETBRIGHT LAUNCHES AGILE MARKETING WEBINAR SERIES