During Cincinnati’s recent BrandHUB launch, we had the opportunity to hear Guy Kawasaki speak. His second pillar of enchantment, trustworthiness, struck a chord of relevance with us, especially to building brand trust. Whether you’re an individual or a business, trust is integral to success. To build trust, you first need to extend trust; then, follow it up by modeling trust through authentic and transparent customer communications. Here are three guidelines:

Tags: branding, MRM, marketing strategy, marketing technology, marketing resource management

As consumers have embraced social media in the Digital Age, they are conducting more research online than ever before.The digital environment is rapidly evolving, and navigating it requires the insight and collaboration of multiple departments.

Tags: branding, MRM, marketing strategy, marketing resource management

The maxim, “Work smarter, not harder” has never been more relevant than in today’s resource-pressed marketing environment, and multichannel marketing is becoming essential to shortening the path from campaign to conversion. According to a recent study conducted by Forrester Research on behalf of Sitecore (n=226), “86% of marketers surveyed either agree or completely agree (Top 2 answers on a 5 point scale) that successfully integrating multiple channels under a single integrated marketing strategy is critical to their long-term success.”

Tags: marketing campaign, marketing strategy, marketing technology, financial services marketing

With more consumers conducting pre-purchase research online, lead nurturing remains an important strategy in maintaining prospect interest during the early stages of the consumer decision journey, while content has gained momentum as an important sales support resource. This new environment creates a new model of collaboration between Sales and Marketing.

Tags: MRM, marketing strategy, marketing resource management, sales and marketing alignment

With nearly 50 percent of mobile phone users in the U.S. carrying smartphones, and 25 percent of this sample also carrying tablets, connected devices and tablets have gone mainstream and are leading the shift towards a mobile-driven consumer decision journey. Accordingly, the IBM State of Marketing 2012 report found that 41% of marketers worldwide cite the growth of channel and device choices as the top challenge to their company over the next 5 years, while adoption of mobile websites and mobile applications grows.

Tags: QR Codes, marketing campaign, marketing strategy, customer experience

In Olympic training, preparation is everything. Olympic athletes prepare rigorously to become champions in their respective events, and the process demands unwavering commitment, discipline and focus. Just as athletes develop their skills and expertise over time, so do leads need to be consistently nurtured. You can’t qualify for the Olympics after taking one swimming lesson – nor does it make sense to ask for a prospect’s business the first time you encounter a lead. With myriad messages competing for your prospect’s attention, a formal lead nurturing strategy can help to convert new leads into customers by providing the right content at the right time. Here are five steps for designing your lead nurturing strategy and creating content that converts.

Tags: MRM, Continuity Campaigns, marketing strategy, marketing resource management, sales and marketing alignment

Great Britain fought boldly against U.S. Independence in the Revolutionary War. Yet nearly 250 years later, the U.S. is aligned with our friendly fellow across the pond on matters from sharing military intelligence to joint peacekeeping missions alike. What we can learn from this effective bilateral partnership between two former enemies is that history doesn’t always etch our fates in stone – and it is, in fact, possible to transform enemies into allies.

Tags: marketing strategy, Marketing Organizational Leadership

In marketing strategy, sometimes the difference between good and great marketing

Tags: QR Codes, MRM, marketing strategy, marketing resource management, local marketing automation

We recently had the opportunity to attend a presentation given by Eric Bishop of Rockfish Interactive, who shared a quote that really resonated with us:

Tags: MRM, marketing strategy, personalization, localized marketing, marketing resource management

This quote from a recent MarketingProfs article pretty much sums it up: "We are operating in an increasing social and real-time environment where things are happening faster and traditional approaches to marketing planning just can't keep up." —Frank Days, vice-president of marketing, Correlsense

Tags: MRM, marketing strategy, social media, marketing resource management, local marketing automation