YES – you must have an introduction before you can communicate effectively by email By Ed Weatherall, managing director, Concep We all complain that our inboxes are busy and that we get too many emails. We spend our time deleting emails rather than opening them. A few years ago I remember people saying even if someone didn’t open your email, the fact they saw your brand name had a positive brand impact. I feel this is no longer the case. If recipients do not recognise a sender or feel they have not asked for an email they are a) unlikely...

Zina Manda, director of Mardev, shares her advice on making your lead generation strategy a success and impressing the financial director Credit crunch marketing has seen a considerable move in budget over the last 12 months from traditional advertising to lead generation. There are however a large number of lead generation channels and vast array of possible outcomes. How can you ensure that you are generating genuine value for your company from this type of activity? Defining a leadA marketing-defined lead may recognise a click through on an email, a download of a white paper or registration for a webinar as...

By Maxine-Laurie Marshall, editorial assistant, B2B Marketing My observation of B2B marketing in the brief time I have been working in the industry is that it’s comparable to Germanic tourists. B2B marketing is practical, efficient, and quite happy strolling around London in walking boots, and equally practical yet aesthetically displeasing jackets (well it could rain at any time, then who will have the last laugh). Creativity in B2B and avoiding clichés is something some agencies pride themselves on, but is it really necessary? Is there anything wrong with being practical yet slightly unfashionable? B2B seems to be based around needs rather...

By Graeme Foux, Knexus CEO Cloud computing and Software-as-a-service are two of the hottest topics of discussion in the technology community today. So if you’re a marketer, you may feel now is the moment to turn away and find something more interesting and relevant to read. Well don’t, because this is a topic that has the potential to be hugely liberating for marketers. The sooner you grasp the concepts, the quicker you can deploy this insight to create great digital experiences for your customers and enhanced revenues for your company. So what is ‘Cloud Computing’. Put simply, with Cloud Computing...

Guest blogger Chris Bagnall, managing director for DWA, questions whether there is the right share on the time, effort and budget spent creating content versus promoting it What content can doThe Internet has fundamentally changed the traditional B2B sales and marketing process. Prospective customers for a huge percentage of products and services can access a wide range of information to aid their purchasing decisions often without learning about a company through direct dialogue. The amount of content available online to aid decisions is vast but is it necessarily in the right format to be consumed by your audience and can...

Guest blog by Liane Dietrich, managing director of LinkShare Social networks have been much enthused and debated since their inception. Some of us wonder what we ever did without them, others will never understand what grown people might see in sharing their daily exploits with their ‘network’. However one thing is for sure, nearly every Online Marketing Manager is no doubt still asking themselves the question “how can we make money out of them?”. Whilst the pure user side of social networks is straight forward, those trying to monetise them face a number of obstacles as they try to strike a balance...

By guest blogger Tim Hazelhurst, non-executive chairman, IAS b2b Marketing    As we enter the festivity period and we worry whether our post will be delivered or if we can fly for our Christmas break with BA. And the national debt and forthcoming cuts in the quality of our life weigh heavily on our shoulders And it would be easy to pessimistic about everything, consider this.......... A few days ago I came down to London to attend a CIM conference and the annual B2B Marketing/ABBA Christmas bash. I also took the opportunity to pop in on my youngest daughter Sophie who is working in...

By Peter McCormick, UK GM and co-founder of on-demand email and one-to-one marketing firm ExactTarget In all of the talk on social media and its influence on email marketing, it occurred to me that email marketers consistently commit an antisocial sin. Worse still, it is a sin often taught as ‘best practice’ in order to decrease the hassle of managing a large number of responses to marketing email messages. I am writing of the dreaded ‘no-reply@’ email address. Consider this near perfect email from Dropbox. The subject line ‘Come back to Dropbox!’ makes it clear why I received the message. True,...

By  Ian Irving, Director of Corporate at leading experiential agency RPM The B2B industry has a more wary approach to embracing new mediums in comparison to the B2C market.  Whilst consumer brands have been quick to jump on emerging communication methods, business brands have often relied on more traditional mediums. Whilst it can be argued that this approach has proved effective in the past, I don’t think that the traditional thinking behind B2B marketing and events has been challenged enough.  With the recession still taking hold, it's time for B2B marketers to reassess the marketing mix and take a closer look at...

By Anna Goldie, online editor The time of year is upon us when some of us start thinking about our New Year’s resolutions and I want to hear about yours. No, I don’t want to hear about you resolving not to clean your finger nails with your pen lid anymore or finally admitting that you are more than a social smoker. I want to hear about the resolutions that are really important in 2010— the ones about the world of B2B marketing. Maybe you have learnt a valuable lesson in 2009 that you are determined to put into practice in...