I attended salesforce.com’s annual users conference, Dreamforce, for the fourth time this year and have been amazed at its growth. With 42,000+ registrants and 275+ exhibitors, this was the largest Dreamforce ever (and one of the biggest software conferences held). To stand out, we knew we had to make a big investment in terms of finances, [...]
A Marketing Manager’s New Job Description
If you have used a marketing automation platform (or even a content management or email marketing solution) you will no doubt have noticed that these tools are starting to blur the lines between a marketer’s day to day activities and what was traditionally thought of as the IT department’s responsibilities. Like it or not, today’s [...]
Writing a book is hard. Giving it away is easy.
If you read my post yesterday, you know that my Pardot co-founder and I have just published a book on Marketing Automation. We have been fortunate enough to have sold a bunch but we have also given away a bunch. It’s certainly a lot easier to do the latter. In that vein, we will continue [...]
Marketing Automation Book Published
If you have followed my posts you may have noticed that I have taken quite a hiatus over the past half year. Writer’s block? Actually, quite the opposite. My latest labor of love is a marketing automation primer that I have published with my Pardot co-founder David Cummings. The material assumes a strong knowledge of [...]
Involving your support team in your SEO efforts
SEO is somewhat of an arms race. Organizations that are reasonably successful at it follow best practices for on-page SEO, have great internal linking structure, and run inbound linking campaigns (great content, link bait, etc.). At the end of the day, however, what often separates good rankings from great rankings is the sheer amount of [...]
Are Paid Pilots or Free Trials Better for B2B?
I have recently read two great posts about the over-use and ultimate lack of effectiveness of the free trial as a marketing tactic in B2B SaaS sales organizations. Both Jep Castlestein of LeadSloth and Amanda Ferrante of DemandGen Report talk about alternatives to the ubiquitous trial and each provided great food for thought on a [...]
Let Your Website Do the Selling in B2B
As a marketer, I have the opportunity to look at a wide variety of company websites when assessing our inbound leads. I am always surprised by the number of websites I come across that are not user friendly. Within the B2B industry, your website can mean everything to your potential customers. Prospects want information and [...]
SpamAssassin Rules and what they Mean for your Emails
For the past several years I have been following SpamAssassin’s rule set and I am always amazed by how many seemingly innocuous things (e.g. “Dear x”) can make perfectly harmless emails come under suspicion. The vast majority of issues come from poorly coded/authenticated emails. This can either be the fault of the email’s designer (in the case [...]
Measuring email marketing deliverability
Email marketing vendors often boast that their infrastructure and ISP relations teams lead to high deliverability. While it is true that any ESP is likely to significantly beat a company’s in-house solution, it becomes more difficult when trying to compare one ESP’s deliverability to another. When you are evaluating email vendors, I highly recommend starting [...]
About
I am the co-founder and COO of Pardot, a B2B marketing automation provider. This blog covers my thoughts on B2B marketing, startups, and client service.
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