Martech Zone
Martech Zone provides daily articles for business, sales, and marketing professionals to research technology, discover new sales and marketing tools, and learn how to leverage platforms to drive greater business results.
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E-commerce and Retail
Causes: Charity + Facebook = WIN!
I’m not a fan of Facebook, that probably won’t change anytime soon. Aside from the ridiculous ads that won’t go away no matter how many times I ask (see screenshot below), Facebook is a closed system – they want all activity to happen within their platform. This is constraining… and lessons should have been learned from AOL and MySpace. In…
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Content Marketing
5 Keys to B2B Blogging
This week I’m working on a presentation for the Webtrends Engage conference. My topic is quite specific and the time slot is very brief (10 minutes), so it’s challenging me to do one heck of a presentation! I’ve been asked to speak to successful B2B Blogging. I’ve narrowed the keys to Business to Business (B2B) Blogging down to 5 distinct…
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Social Media & Influencer Marketing
Is Copernicus or Aristotle Running Your Business?
There are several businesses I work with… and I think the ones I enjoy the most are the ones who recognize that they are not as important as their customers are. Some of the others don’t even acknowledge that there is a customer. Copernicus has been identified as the father of modern day astronomy since he argued heliocentrism over a…
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Advertising Technology
Sometimes Marketing Coal Produces Diamonds
Marketers spend much of the Holidays being villainized and accused of commercializing the season. After watching my nieces monitor NORAD for Santa’s progress globally, I thought it might be worth reflecting on marketing’s positive contributions to the Holiday season. Although Santa Claus’s red and white garb had been commonplace for a few years, Haddon Sundblom solidified this version by creating…
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Event Marketing
Dropping the Super Bowl for Digital Media
More and more businesses are embracing technology when it comes to their marketing strategies. When Pepsi pulled out of the Super Bowl, traditional journalists called it a gamble. Not advertising in the Super Bowl is a gamble? Really? A Super Bowl advertisement costs $3 million dollars per 30 seconds. Pepsi planned two 30 secoond ads and a 60 second ad……
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Customer Data Platforms
Side With Your Customers
On a recent call to a major telecom company, which I won’t mention (their logo looks like a blue death star), I was infatuated with my customer service representative (CSR). Shocking, I know. Throughout the call, she actually listened to what I wanted, and she said things like, “This is the deal that most of my customers like,” “Let me…
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Paid and Organic Search Marketing
Checking Your Site’s Rank with Personalized Search
One of my clients called last week and asked why, when she searched, her site was first in the rankings but another person had her down the page a bit. If you hadn’t heard the ruckus, Google has turned on personalized search results permanently. That means that based on your search history, your results will differ. If you’re checking your…
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Content Marketing
Are You an Elephant or a Butterfly?
I watched a presentation with Roger Williams, a regional non-profit owner and entrepreneur. Roger shared a fantastic business analogy; he asked, “Are you an Elephant or a Butterfly?” Both elephants and butterflies are memorable, but they have distinct differences. Elephants Elephants, though not conventionally beautiful, embody strength and resilience. Their journey, often through muddy and challenging terrains, symbolizes the gritty…
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Sales Enablement, Automation, and Performance
The Most Important Skill Salespeople Need to Learn
My wife finally had a chance to replace her 8-year-old laptop, which was starting to function more like a Brother word processor from the late 80s, only not as fast. It was a Dell with 512 MB RAM, and a 80 MB RAM hard drive. It was slow, unstable, and the crank-up handle had snapped off the front. She ended…
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Analytics & Testing
It’s Time for Your Year-End Marketing Review
It’s that time of year again… when you must put time aside to review your annual marketing plan. Next year may be more important than any year previous with the rapid adoption of social media strategies. Here’s what I recommend collecting: Marketing Spend by Medium – this is actual money paid for external marketing and advertising efforts. Breaking this down…
