Webinar:
ACCELERATING REVENUE GROWTH USING CONTENT MARKETING
Presented by MarketingProfs and the Marketing Cloud

Date: Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Time: 10AM Pacific / 1PM Eastern

Register Now

Generating great content is time and resource-intensive, but new research shows the payoff can be multifaceted if you follow the right approach. Great content boosts credibility, spreads virally, ranks higher on search engines, fuels social media engagement, and attracts prospects that convert at a far faster rate than any interruption-based Marketing technique.

In this webinar, MarketingProfs President Roy Young will share details from research into the vital role content plays in today’s marketing mix. Pam O’Neal, Vice President of Marketing at BreakingPoint Systems, will then illustrate how they created a content marketing engine that helped drive triple digit revenue for the technology startup during the “great recession.”

You will learn:

• The not so obvious role content plays in attracting and converting buyers
• Considerations for developing a content marketing strategy
• How to map content to buyer pain points
• How to set up and fuel a content market engine
• Clever ways to leverage content across social media

Free Research: All registrants will receive an Executive Summary of MarketingProfs Content Marketing research after the webinar!

Register for the Webinar Now

And don’t forget, the Marketing Cloud is hosting networking receptions in four cities around the country.

We hope to see you at one of the Marketing Cloud Executive Networking Forum & Receptions this July. Join other top marketing professionals who are coming together  to share success stories, best practices and strategies – including data quality, online presentations and virtual conferences, distributed marketing, search engine optimization & marketing automation. Not to mention cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and a lot of fun!

RSVP to reserve your spot.

Event Locations:

Boston – July 7 - Courtyard Boston Downtown/Tremont
New York – July 8 – Ava Lounge, Rooftop of DREAM Hotel
San Francisco - July 14 – Thirsty Bear Brewing Company
Austin – July 21 – Crowne Plaza

Timing: 5:00pm to 8:00pm (Best Practices session at 6:00pm)
Food: Hors d’œuvres and Cocktails
Why: Connect with top marketers to share success stories, best practices and to have a great time.

RSVP Now

Question: If you provide content without requiring someone to sign up, how will you get in touch with them? Won’t this lengthen the sales cycle? What about competitors?

Answer: The thought of developing marketing content that is not protected by a sign up form is unsettling to many marketers. But, it is not a new concept, and it is key to establishing your presence in the mind of your prospects.

The important idea here is thought leadership. In the early stages of the buying process, prospects are really readers looking to sort out all kinds of issues. From products to product categories. From vendors to service providers. They want to know who is the Lamborghini brand and who’s the bargain brand. The days of getting someone’s attention and holding it to the exclusion of every other player are over. Information is too accessible, and because information is so accessible, your content has to be a part of their reading list.

Creating thought leadership helps your prospects learn more about you, your background and how you think. It helps build the foundations of a relationship: familiarity and trust. At this stage, don’t hide your thought leadership content behind registration forms. Set this content free to allow it to spread virally. Shape the conversations and engage in dialogs with your readers. Then, when they are familiar with you and trust you, they will be further along on their buying process and you’ll be right there with them.

As for competitors getting your content, remember, information wants to be free. Finding content provided by competitors is not that difficult and chances are, they already have your stuff.

For an example of content that delivers value and requires no registration, see Marketo’s Definitive Guide to Lead Nurturing.

Question: How do you get started in social media?

Answer:  All three of the presenters in this webinar agree that the first step in adding social media to your marketing mix is to listen. Since social media is just that, social, you must begin by listening. Of course “listening” in the online world, for the most part means reading which has some great advantages.  This kind of listening allows you to know not only what is being said, but also who is saying it, who else is listening and how the conversation flows.

Social media interactions are really online conversations. Social media is a two way street and how, where and why these dialogs take place is how people are learning about new products, new and established companies and who the players are that matter.

David Alston provided the example of walking into a party where you may not know anyone. (Say the person who invited you hasn’t arrived yet.) You approach a group of people who are talking about a subject and you begin to listen. You may introduce yourself or you may wait. All the while, you gauge the participants, the subject matter and the tone looking for what is interesting, controversial and what you may agree or disagree on. When everyone agrees on something, you may also agree and nod or laugh with everyone else. Maybe you don’t agree and decide to move on to another group. Maybe they ask your opinion on something, and you offer up a thought or idea and again you look for reactions. Just like this kind of face to face interaction, an online social media conversation starts by listening.

There are some great tools available for listening and participating in online conversations. Tools like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are all very good starting places. Sign up with each of these services and begin to follow people and companies you’re interested in. If all anyone talks about is what they had for lunch or the color of their socks, don’t follow them anymore. This process of following and unfollowing is how you will tune into who matters to you and who doesn’t. Yes, you have to put a little effort into it, but how else will you find out who or what is important?

Once you’ve set up an account on say, Twitter, find people whom you trust or think you might trust and start to follow them. They could be CEOs of companies in your field, analysts, journalists, bloggers and vendors. Also look at who they are following. Again, a little effort is required here, but soon enough, you’ll have a pretty good sized list to listen to, and your foray into social media will be launched.

Good listening.

And, David Alston, VP of Marketing and Community at Radian6, will speak to the importance of listening, measuring and engaging in terms of the social web and why community-centric thinking is starting to challenge the traditional audience-centric views of marketing.
You will also hear from Jon Miller, VP of Marketing at Marketo on tips and tricks that you can use to combine social media and lead nurturing to increase revenue.

Join us on Wednesday, January 27 at 10am Pacific in what should prove to be a very interesting and insightful 1 hour. And you might even win some very valuable research from Forrester.

This definition of the Marketing Cloud isn’t going to call up Wikipedia or point to architecture or multi-tenancy or any technology debates  –  instead  this definition focuses on the central reason anyone does any marketing ever – to drive sales and GSD.

DemandGen Report – Leading Demand Gen Solution Providers Connect To Form “The Marketing Cloud”

“Promising the same benefits that cloud computing has brought to the enterprise, the Marketing Cloud is positioned to complement the Sales Cloud and Service Cloud pioneered by Salesforce.com.  Because marketing spans a broad spectrum of multi-faceted functions, the Marketing Cloud will be delivered by combining open, interoperable and secure marketing-related services across multiple categories, including business intelligence (BI), community, content management, lead generation, lists and data hygiene, marketing automation, online meetings, and virtual events — with more services being added over time.”

IT Knowledge Hub – Taking Another Look at Chatter & Other Dreamforce Releases

“The goal is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing operations—from marketing automation to analytics—through invitation-only discussions of strategies and best practices. Though the Marketing Cloud doesn’t involve a specific product release, it’s an exciting venture because of the big names in marketing software that support it, like Marketo, Jigsaw, Hoovers, and PivotLink.”

Destination CRM – Dreamforce Releases Galore

“Business solution vendors Alfresco, Demandbase, Hoovers, Marketo, Jigsaw, On24, and PivotLink have come together to launch a new Marketing Cloud community that aims to provide a set of open, interoperable and secure services, with the objective of improving the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing operations. Each vendor brings to the cloud their own technology-from marketing automation to business directories to analytics-that will deliver on that goal. Companies are invited to join the Marketing Cloud community and participate in discussions around marketing strategies and best practices. Moreover, members can Members can access this portal for best practice information, access the knowledgebase, and attend virtual events.”

The 451 Group – Guess who’s forming a Marketing Cloud? A band of marketers, not salesforce.com (yet)

“It makes sense for marketing players to band together to grow more rapidly, and we applaud Marketo and pals for taking the initiative. We expect to see other groups forming in the clouds, perhaps on the sales 2.0 apps side. Tight integration will be key to ensure such groupings of like-minded vendors have real teeth vs. just being another band of brothers.”

Plus the Marketing cloud members,  Demandbase, Marketo, Pivotlink, Jigsaw, Hoovers, Alfresco, and On24 all got involved, posting news and information on their own websites, helping share the important message about open and interoperable marketing solutions.

The Marketing Cloud Party

Just as predicted, the Marketing Cloud party was the B2B Marketing party of the year!

Why?  It was full of all the things that make a party memorable: the food, the drinks, the ambiance, the conversation, the music, and the view.  Just one or two of these makes for a great party, but the Marketing Cloud party had them all. 

Though most important were the hundreds of marketers that made it to the event!

Over 750 people registered, plus almost 1000 invitations were shared, to what turned into an evening of conversation about B2B marketing, Sales 2.0, and social media. 

Special thanks to all the sponsors of the event: Jigsaw, Hoovers, Pivotlink, Demandbase, On24, Alfresco, and Marketo. 

Want to see more?  Join our Marketing Cloud Facebook Page to see all the exciting pictures form the event.

This ultra fabulous event has almost 700 people registered so it is bound to be a great networking event. But don’t just take my word for it, here are 4 reasons you should attend:

1. Great people attending- around 700 have registered for this party, plus 1000 invites have been handed out at Dreamforce
2. Lots of food and drinks- all compliments of the sponsors
3. Super location- St. Regis Hotel, less than a block from the Mascone Center
4. Cool sponsors – Pivotlink, Hoovers, Demandbase, On24, Jigsaw, Alfresco, and Marketo!

What do you have to do to attend?  It’s simple.  Just register at The Marketing Cloud website.  Well over 300 already have- make sure you do too!  Oh, and here is a little secret- you don’t have to be a Dreamforce registrant to attend.  Just a marketer. 

Already signed up?  Share news of the party by using this badge on your website.  You can grab the badge for the party here.

Alfresco Software, Inc. (www.alfresco.com) is the leader in the open source enterprise content management market. The company couples the innovation of open source with the stability of a true enterprise-class platform at a tenth of the cost.  The Alfresco content platform uses a flexible architecture to provide document management, web content management and collaboration software to enterprise customers worldwide.  Based in London, the company was founded in 2005 by a team of content management veterans that includes the co-founder of Documentum, John Newton, and former COO of Business Objects, John Powell. 

Demandbase (www.demandbase.com) is a leading provider of B2B customer acquisition solutions that enable sales and marketing professionals to better identify, reach, and convert new business. Delivered on-demand through software as a service, Demandbase solutions combine the ability to identify website visitors from target businesses with an integrated database of high-quality, validated business contacts and a new breed of B2B Web analytics to improve marketing and sales performance. In use at more than 1,000 companies, Demandbase helps generate more sales opportunities and drive new business. Founded in 2006, Demandbase is headquartered in San Francisco, California and funded by Adobe Systems, Altos Ventures and Sigma Partners.

Hoover’s, a D&B company, provides its customers with insight and actionable information about companies, industries and key decision makers, along with the powerful tools to find and connect to the right people to get business done. Hoover’s provides this information for sales, marketing, business development and other professionals who need intelligence on U.S. and global companies, industries and the people who lead them. Hoover’s unique combination of editorial expertise and one-of-a-kind data collection with user-generated and company-supplied content gives customers a 360-degree view and competitive edge. This information, along with powerful tools to search, sort, download and integrate the content, is available through Hoover’s (http://www.hoovers.com), the company’s premier online service. Hoover’s is headquartered in Austin, Texas.

Jigsaw (www.jigsaw.com) is the industry leader in Data as a Service (DaaS) and business information that uniquely leverages user-generated content contributed by its global business-to-business community of one million members. Jigsaw gives individuals and companies access to contact information for 17 million business people and profiles of 3 million companies. In addition to delivering low-cost and easy access to high-value business information for sales, marketing, recruiting and customer service, Jigsaw provides companies with cloud-based data acquisition and management services

Marketo (www.marketo.com) is the revenue-focused marketing automation company, revolutionizing how marketing and sales teams of all sizes sell and succeed at every stage of the revenue cycle. Delivered in the Marketing Cloud, Marketo’s powerful and easy solutions provide the fastest time to value and ignite explosive revenue growth from the earliest stages of demand generation and lead management to the pursuit of revenue and customer loyalty. Known for providing breakthrough innovation and the utmost in usability, Marketo was voted ‘Best Marketing Automation Application’ by Salesforce customers on the Force.com AppExchange. As of October 2009, more than 300 enterprise and mid-market clients in 12 countries have selected Marketo.

ON24 (www.ON24.com) is the global leader in webcasting and virtual events, providing a full range of innovative solutions for applications such as demand generation, professional development and training and corporate communications. More than 750 organizations and enterprises, including IBM, Autodesk, Cisco, Boston Scientific and the National Science Foundation, rely on ON24.

PivotLink (www.pivotlink.com) is the leader in on-demand business intelligence, serving more than 15,000 users at companies such as: REI; Novell; Party City; Phoenix Technologies; DHL; CamelBak Products; Car Toys; Guardian Home Care Holdings, Inc; Rossignol; Shaklee; Taleo and Zones. Delivered as a Software as a Service (SaaS) model, PivotLink’s award-winning solutions put affordable, secure and easy-to-use analytic tools into the hands of line of business users, freeing IT to focus on strategic business initiatives. PivotLink is a privately held company backed by Trident Capital, Emergence Capital Partners and StarVest Partners.