Stop doing random acts of lead generation | B2B Lead Generation Blog

"I don’t know about you but I seldom meet a B2B marketer who time to think. And it seems that the pressure keeps building as more of us seek to do more with less.

That said, it’s vital for us to think before we execute. It’s not about doing more campaign activity… it’s about doing the right things repeatedly better.

The simple act of a sales and marketing team finding time to think and collaborate together is vital to developing a solid lead generation program. Our results will improve because we're following this approach: ready, aim, aim, aim, and then fire." Click the title to read more...

The small business market research challenge | Duct Tape Marketing Blog

"Market research is a challenge for many small businesses. The data that you may need to conquer your corner of the world may not exist in a tidy database, yet marketing strategy should be well informed with real information.

One of the best methods of market research available to the small business in my opinion is the customer or prospect survey. Picking up the phone and calling your best customers from time to time to dig in and really understand what you do well, what you do that is unique, what you could do that no one else does is essential for creating a marketing strategy and message that has impact." Click the title to read more...

5 Reasons for Not Managing Your Pipeline | First Border

"I’ve been travelling the length and breadth of the UK last week and not been able to put up any posts on my blog and so feeling a little more than a tad guilty I’ve been trying to put one together during my lunch break on one of the training workshops that I’ve been running… to help me I enlisted the help of some friends and so my thanks go to Tony, Richard, Elaine, Mike and Dave (aka Ishbell) who helped me develop this list.

Here are our 5 best reasons why you should not manage your pipeline..." A tongue in cheek look at the problem of pipelines which is definitely worth the read. Click the title to read more...

TypePad, We Love You! Here's Why... | Business Blogs

"“Why do you recommend TypePad.com for blogging? What features make it better for professionals than the free platforms?”

We get asked this question frequently.

We believe most professionals have a lot to do simply running their businesses. Marketing should be as automated as possible, while maintaining a personal touch. Of course, blogging is a near perfect medium for communicating your message to a global audience in an informal, personal manner."

Personally, I recommend WordPress.org, but this is good perspective. Click the title to read more...

What Apps Should You Never Install? | Ask The Readers

"In a dated but still relevant post, technologist Anil Dash calls out a couple of software apps that no one needs to install these days, like WinZip and 'sketchy codec packs.' I'd add any software manufactured by AOL, Adobe Reader, and digital camera-specific photo software to that list. (You're better off with 7-Zip, Pidgin, Foxit Reader, and Picasa.) How about you? What dated apps do you uncover on your co-workers' and relatives' computers that should have never been there to begin with?" Here's a tip of the hat to Bill Pevlor, one of the readers of the blog who first talked with my about FoxIt Reader vs. Adobe Reader. Click the title to read the article and the reader comments...

Social Networking: What Is It and Why Should You Care? | Biz Tips Blog

"Social networking. Social marketing. Web 2.0. You may have heard these terms bandied about and wondered what exactly they are and (more importantly) what they mean for your business." One of the best articles on the topic I have found -- if you're trying to figure this all out, click the title to read more...

How to Build A Better Blog: Personal Branding with a Blog | Business Blogs

"We recently published an article called 'Personal Branding with a Blog' in Personal Branding Magazine for May (Issue #4) in which we state:

There are essentially four problems you’ll encounter when you want to get known, get found, and get hired for your best job ever." Click the title to read more...

George Clooney is not normal | Seth's Blog

"You can't hire that guy because he's not as good looking as George. And you can't believe that speaker because he doesn't present as well as George. And that guy? He's short. Short? Well, shorter than George. And you can't trust him to make good decisions because his skin is much darker than George's.

You can't date her because she's not as good looking as Jennifer (whichever Jennifer you want to set as the standard). And her? Well, she stutters, and Jennifer doesn't. And Jennifer herself, of course, is not nearly as smart as George.

Jennifer and George may be extraordinarily good looking movie stars, but you don't get to work with them. By buying into a standard of expectation for what's normal (or great or very good or trustworthy) we shortchange ourselves every single day." A good post about people and expectations. Click the title to read more...

David Allen Live on Duct Tape Marketing | Duct Tape Marketing Blog

"Join me Thursday, April 17th at Noon CDT for a live one on one interview with David Allen, author of the perennially popular - Getting Things Done - The Art of Stress-free Productivity. We will how to be more productive, how to get more of the right things done and how small business owners can relieve stress." Click the title to read more...

B2B Lead Management Market Heats Up | Forrester Marketing Blog

"Since the start of this year, I’ve been receiving a boatload of briefing requests from companies wanting to show me their lead generation and management solutions. Most recently, Marketo just announced their lead management solution. While honored, I also find reviewing these solutions confusing because there is a lot of variation in the product presentations and overlap between categories. And it’s not clear to me if lead management automation deserves to be a separate category or to be subsumed as part of the broader marketing platform. (I know Suresh Vittal includes lead management as a component of his enterprise marketing platform. But does the B2B need the same platform components as B2C?) Here’s how I see it and I’d like to hear your views as well." Click the title to read more...

Blogging for entrepreneurs...

Google lets users access Web-based documents offline | SiliconValley.com

"Google, bolstering competition with Microsoft, is letting users of its Internet-based word-processing program access their documents offline. A desktop version of Google Docs, now available to a few users, will be rolled out more broadly over the next few weeks, the Mountain View company said Tuesday in a blog posting. While offline access is offered only in English for now, the company is working on other languages. Google is upgrading its Web-based programs in an effort to take customers from Microsoft, which dominates the personal-computer software market. With offline access, Google Docs customers can use the Internet-based program and automatically save their work to a PC, so it's available on airplanes and other places where they can't connect to the Web." Click the title to read the article online...

Blogs in Plain English

Should I Change My Website Into a Blog?

"“Hi Darren, I’ve got a website at www._____.com which I’ve had for a few years and not really done much with. I’ve heard that blogs are a good way of building traffic and making money, should I change it to a blog?”

I get this type of question on a weekly basis so I thought that I’d tackle it as a post.

There are a number of factors to consider when deciding whether to change an established website into a blog." Actually, this is not an either/or question -- it's a both/and! Websites and blogs serve different purposes and you need both of them. I think of websites as more of brochureware than anything else for most businesses. This article lists 6 reasons why you want to blog -- click the title to read them. In addition, I offer the following reasons thoughts...

Most small businesses invest in a website and think they're done with the expenses and that people will come flocking to them like the old UPS commercial about ecommerce on the internet; throw up a website and the orders come pouring in instantly. Doesn't happen...
2. You can easily append a blog to the front end of an existing website as I have done here. My website is http://www.e1evation.com but all the action is here at http://blog.e1evation.com. This takes about three minutes to set up if you know what you're doing...

What's your take on blogs and websites? Comments are free... ;-)

Those idiots in marketing just don’t get it | Duct Tape Marketing Blog

"I’m presenting a workshop this week titled - How to get sales and marketing on the same page.

The point of the discussion is to help the audience, made up of marketers and the sales people for those marketers, understand that while they may indeed perform unique and necessary functions, they have shared objectives.

So, while, as the title of this post suggests, the gap between what sales does and what marketing does in support may seem vast (and perhaps even at odds) there is an absolute need to strike a balance between their independent and interdependent selves." Click the title to read more...

Microsoft: All roads lead to Vista | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

"Windows Vista's checkered history is now legend.

Instead of the evolutionary marvel that Microsoft long promised, Vista instead has become synonymous with development delays, shifting feature lists, and spotty driver support.

No wonder then, more than a year after Vista's release, many consumers and business customers have steadfastly held onto Vista's predecessor, the Windows XP operating system. Microsoft has followed with price cuts and promotions. This is not exactly the 'wow' moment the company had in mind. News.com's Ina Fried has chronicled Vista's first year in earlier posts.

Still, we know that all good Windows releases eventually come to an end: Windows XP is stable, widely supported, and ultimately doomed. New PCs with XP installed will begin to disappear this summer. Microsoft will stop selling XP completely next January (although the company will provide support for much longer)." Click the title to read more...

One bookmark manager to rule them all...

A recurring theme on this blog is using one one online [platform independent] tool to use or store resources. Bookmarks are no exception, although in this case I actually use two - one for public, one for private [nothing racy here -- actually is the stuff that's too boring to share] bookmarks. If you scroll down to the bottom of this page, you'll see what is called a 'tag cloud' from del.icio.us [online at del.icio.us.com] -- it's a 'cloud' of bookmarks that I have tagged with descriptors so that I can share them with other people. Check it out -- del.icio.us is what you call a social bookmarking tool meaning that you can share the good stuff that you find and categorize it to either share it or be able to find it again. If you use firefox, there are a couple of addons that will allow you to replace the firefox bookmarks with del.icio.us. You can also use it to import your firefox bookmarks into del.icio.us as well. You can share your bookmarks as clouds on your blogs or through a newsfeed if you prefer...

The other tool I use is Google bookmarks which part of the Google toolbar. Google bookmarks doesn't have the rich sharing capabilities of del.icio.us so that's where I keep my boring stuff that's not really worth sharing. You can log on to Google bookmarks anywhere so your toolkit can be with you whenever and wherever you are. The Google bookmarks also integrate nicely with Google search and Google notebook...

So You Want to Be a Blogging Star? | New York Times

"Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has a full plate. Besides his basketball team, the busy billionaire also owns part of a media company, and serves as chairman of the TV channel HDNet. He recently competed for five weeks on “Dancing With the Stars” on ABC. How on earth does he find time to blog?" Click the title to read more...

Personal branding is a decidedly human endeavor | Duct Tape Marketing Blog

"In my view, branding has always been a very human endeavor. This is so true for the small business owner and certainly a wise approach for the person trying to create a career that nourishes.

Personal branding, like any form of branding, is all about authenticity. It’s a bit ironic how the thing we sometimes need the most help with is being real." Click the title to read more...

Opportunity of a lifetime | Seth's Blog

"So, there's plenty of bad economic news floating around. From the price of oil to Wall Street to bailouts to the death of traditional advertising.

Which is great news for anyone hoping to grow or to make an impact.

Change (and the fortunes that go with it) is almost always made during the down part of the cycle. It might not be fun, but it's exciting. (Where do you think Google came from?) The opportunity is to find substantial opportunities (in any field) that deliver real value and have a future. Those jobs/investments/companies/ideas are undervalued right now, but not for long."