The Future of Demand Gen: Don’t Miss the Boat!

Apr 29, 2013

  1. What are the potential risks and rewards of the latest demand gen offerings?
  2. How do you integrate new tools with traditional demand gen activities?

This ITAC Marketing Think Tank was hosted at Cisco Canada in Toronto, Ontario by Paul McDevitt, Senior Manager, Marketing. The discussion was moderated by Bob Becker, Principal, SMA.

What We Learned

  • Develop and enforce social media (SM) corporate guidelines before SM activities grow. Integrate all your SM tools and ensure communication lines are open among everyone in the organization who deploys SM.  Strive to achieve  internal consistency
  • Use SM for new, unique and engaging communication. Consider including two-minute videos as part of multi-touch engagement. Ensure your content is concise and relevant – especially when tweeting!
  • Assess your campaign success through how well it fits with your customer’s purchasing cycle — not how it fits with your own corporate defined cycles
  • Learn about marketing automation tools such as Eloqua and how it can enhance SM activities

 

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The Social Media Cliff Marketing Roundtable

Mar 4, 2013, 2 comments

This ITAC Marketing Roundtable was hosted at the MaRS Centre, Toronto, Ontario. The discussion was moderated by Bob Becker, Principal, SMA.

  • What do organizations need to do and consider before launching into the very public arena of social media — where there’s really no “going back”?
  • In a brave new world of Likes, Follows, Re-Tweets and more – how do you determine what quantifies success – and how do you get your CEO’s buy-in?

What We Learned

  • 70% of marketers are engaging in SM this year and more plan to next year
  • We all struggle with trying to get the right SM mix; we are not alone
  • Everyone is on their own SM journey – there are varying degrees of maturity
  • “Pioneers take the arrows”; listen first, measure and make decisions based on your current marketing mix
  • Go to where your target markets are having conversations, such as LinkedIn or Facebook groups and participate
  • We must target our SM communication, especially in the paid channel; amplify your voice
  • Buy your own hashtag
  • Paid tweet – some organizations donate to charity for every tweet on a particular topic
  • Take risks and don’t be afraid to fail; learn from it and apply it

 

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