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Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:48:00 EST

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ClickInsights: How to Make Marketing Messages Memorable

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:00:00 EST

Think quickly. Which marketing slogan or jingle can you hear in your ear? Which marketing logo or picture appears before your mind's eye? Why do we remember only some marketing messages over others? What are characteristics of a memorable marketing message? Here is an interview about with Chip Heath, author of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die - Making B2B Marketing Messages More Memorable.

We have invited B2B Experts to shed light on the following question: "What can B2B marketers do to make marketing messages more memorable? Define one or more (no more than 3) characteristics of a memorable marketing message. Optionally, also give an example of a great B2B marketing message (slogan, picture, video etc) which has captivated you?". Read on to get their insights.

Recommended Resources from B2B Marketing Experts

Blogs

Books

Others

Ardath Albee

Blog Marketing Interactions Twitter Ardath421

Provide a Takeaway that is Conceptual, Conversational & Convertible

Ardath Albee's Bio

Ardath Albee is a B2B Marketing Strategist. Her company Marketing Interactions helps companies with complex sales and quantify marketing effectiveness by using interactive e-marketing strategies driven by compelling content. She empowers her clients to create customer-centric nurturing programs that leverage strategic story development to engage prospects until they are sales ready. Ardath’s book, eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale is now shipping!

Ardath Albee's Tip

B2B marketing messages need to leave a lasting impression. What your prospects walk away with, the ideas your message helps them ingest, chew on and discuss with colleagues are the takeaway from your messaging. Even if your prospect doesn’t choose to act upon your call to action, the takeaway should provide recognizable value. As the impressions from takeaways build, your credibility will grow and active engagement will follow.

A valuable takeaway is:

Conceptual – produces an idea your content helped generate that the prospect can own and develop in relation to a top priority.
Conversational – the idea is powerful enough that the prospect wants to discuss it with others involved in solving the problem your content is designed to address.
Convertible – applicable to their specific situation. They can see the idea in application to their circumstances.

The beauty of a takeaway is that it can be “owned” by the prospect, but attributable to your company. By simplifying the complexity of a situation in a way that promotes active thinking about solving it, your messaging helps prospects visualize successful outcomes and enroll others in embracing “their” ideas.

The point is that every single interaction you have with a prospect is an opportunity to provide a takeaway they value. Just ensuring your logo or company name is in front of them doesn’t create engagement. By helping prospects generate ideas that get them thinking about the possibilities of eliminating obstacles hindering successful outcomes, your company can become the anchor they rely upon to help them do just that when the time comes.

The next time you think an email message or content description is just a call to action, think again. Define the value your prospect will receive—even if they don’t click through. If all they’ll gain is the knowledge that your product has yet another new feature, it’s time to rethink your messaging from your prospects’ perspectives. Give them a takeaway.

Ardath Albee Recommends

Ardath Albee's book eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale

Rebel Brown

Blog Phoenix Rising Twitter RebelBrown

Be relevant, be concise, be compelling

Rebel Brown's Bio

Rebel Brown is go-to-market strategist and Spin Doctor specializing in start ups, turnarounds and start-arounds in the high technology arena. She has helped to define, position and launch over 75 individual products and companies since she began consulting 20 years ago. Her clients who are technology vendors and venture firms leverage her strategic marketing and go-to-market expertise. She identifies and transforms differentiation - customers crown jewels - into compelling, customer-centric value that sells. Her blog is Phoenix Rising and her business is People Who Know.

Rebel Brown's Tip

To me, great messages attract buyer attention. That’s all they are focused on doing. They don’t explain or educate. They draw audiences in with their direct and quick hits. At least the memorable ones do. We want our key branding messages to be sticky, to catch the audience’s eye, draw them into our story. Then we can share more information.

I call these messages Pivot Points, focused on our market, our company and our offerings. When I’m creating Pivot Point messages with clients, I focus on three key criteria. The final messages must be relevant, concise and compelling.

Be relevant. People pay attention to things that are important to them. If we’re telling our audience about things that they don’t care about – we don’t get their attention. If we’re telling them about things that are important to us – we missed the point of marketing. Know your audience and be relevant. With every message, answer the most important marketing question. “So What?”

Be concise. One of the biggest mistakes we all make is using too many words to make our point. Less is more - especially in sales and marketing. Short and sweet is what attracts buyers. So get to the point, stay on point. When we wander off message into explanations or deep dives, we lose audience attention.

Be compelling. There’s always more than one way to say anything. So pick the words that are most powerful. Active words are much better than passive words. Questions draw people in, especially when they’re right between the eyes. Quantitative, provable statements are enticing as well. Explaining how things work is boring to economic buyers. Think sizzle!

Rebel Brown Recommends

Charlene Li's and Josh Barnoff's book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

Mac McIntosh

Blog Sales Leads Insights Twitter B2B_Sales_Leads

Talk directly to the target audience when creating lead generation campaigns and messages

Mac McIntosh's Bio

M. H. (Mac) McIntosh is considered to be one of North America’s top B2B marketing consultants and an expert the subject of using marketing to generate leads and drive sales. In addition to consulting, Mac conducts marketing workshops and seminars, writes regularly for leading marketing and business publications, is the publisher of Sales Lead Report, a newsletter with more than 15,000 subscribers, and Sales Lead Insights, his B2B marketing blog. He holds the Certified Business Communicator (CBC) designation awarded by the Business Marketing Association and was designated by BtoB magazine as one of its “Top 100 in BtoB Marketing.”

Mac McIntosh's Tip

Start by using the sticky ideas in Chip and Dan Heath’s thought provoking book, Made to Stick.

That’s exactly what one of my B2B sales lead consulting clients, GlobalSpec (an online media company serving the industrial marketplace) did. They created a very successful lead generation campaign using the theme of “Be a marketing Hero.”

Why was it memorable, and effective? Because it talked directly to the target audience, industrial marketers, using many of the sticky concepts the Heaths recommended in their book:

It had strong emotional appeal. It was appealing to exactly the people they were trying to generate leads from: Industrial marketers. The same folks, who like the late Rodney Dangerfield, often feel they get no respect.
It was simple. Marketers clearly understood the message (the benefit). They “got it” right away.
It was concrete. The lead generation campaign including clear calls-to-action, such as Download the Marketing Hero's Toolkit.
It was credible. The campaign was aimed at marketers who had already been receiving information from GlobalSpec, so they were familiar with the company and had previously experienced the quality of the marketing resources offered by GlobalSpec, so they had little doubt that the information offered would be useful.
It told a story. The lead generation campaign materials used familiar super-hero comic book language like, “Fear no more, help is here” and it engaged the reader by addressing a real-world problem that marketers were (and still are) wrestling with: today’s challenging economy.
It was unexpected. It was it a rare positive message in a time of doom and gloom for industrial marketers.

All B2B marketers should read Made to Stick, and give copies of the book to the people they rely on to help create or implement their lead generation campaigns, messages and offers. They should also list three concepts outlined in the book (i.e. emotional, simple, concrete, etc.) on a sticky-note, then stick it on the edge of their computer monitor as a reminder when they are developing lead generation campaigns, coming up with offers and calls-to-action or writing copy.

Mac McIntosh Recommends

Made to Stick book by Chip and Dan Heath
MarketingSherpa
B2B Lead Generation Benchmark Study 2009
Sales Lead Expert’s Learning Center

Tom Pick

Blog WebMarketCentral Twitter TomPick

Know your audience, understand what keeps them awake at night, and use their language

Tom Pick's Bio

Tom Pick is an online marketing executive with KC Associates, a marketing and PR firm in Minneapolis , Minnesota , focused on b2b technology clients. He helps clients improve business results through search engine optimization (SEO), search marketing, interactive PR and social media programs. Tom also writes the award-winning WebMarketCentral blog, a blog about B2B lead generation, social media, interactive PR, SEO and search engine marketing.

Tom Pick's Tip

The keys to creating a memorable b2b marketing message are to know your audience, understand what keeps them awake at night, and use their language. That means, first and foremost, you need to be able to precisely define your audience; the language that will appeal to C-level executives is different than what will speak to the direct concerns of a departmental director, for example. An ideal message will speak directly to eliminating a pain your target prospects recognize, in words they would use. And of course, you have to be able to back up your promise. If, for example, your message is about reducing costs, you’ll need proof points that specifically identify which costs can be reduced, and what level of savings is reasonably achievable.

An example I like is from Kinetic Data. Their primary audience is IT service managers and internal help desk managers. Their tagline – Building a better service experience – may not mean a lot to you, but it resonates with their target prospects, who care about making IT easy to deal with for employees, and about keeping costs down. The company’s software empowers users to make IT service requests through self-service portals, while also streamlining the service delivery workflow on the back end. The marketing message is effective because it directly addresses a key concern (IT service quality) of their prospects.

Tom Pick Recommends

Howard Sewell

Blog Direct Connections Twitter HJSewell

Does you message get prospects and customers to respond?

Howard Sewell's Bio

Howard J. Sewell is president and founder of Connect Direct Inc. (CDI) a full-service marketing agency with offices in Silicon Valley and Seattle that specializes in demand generation and lead management for high-technology companies.

Howard Sewell's Tip

This is an interesting question because, frankly, I’m not sure I care whether our clients’ marketing messages are memorable or not. As a dyed-in-the-wool direct marketer, all I care about is whether someone responds. To my way of thinking, companies who go out of their way to make their messages memorable in a “Got Milk?” kind of way will most likely end up with pithy copy that fails to drive the desired action on the part of the reader. Today’s social, digital, interactive world demands messages that drive people to engage, respond, and share. Whether or not they remember the message 5 minutes later, I would argue, is secondary.

When I was first cutting my teeth in marketing, an early mentor told me that good copy (and by extension, I would argue, an effective marketing message) needs to do three things, namely tell the reader:

What the offer is
Why he/she wants it
How to get it

It’s a philosophy that works well for subject lines, for landing pages, for headlines. As an example, here’s an email I reviewed not long ago on our blog, developed (not by our firm) for Tableau Software.

Note that within just a few lines, you know what the offer is, what you’ll learn from it (in very specific, concrete, quantitative terms), and how to get it. Is the message about “telling stories” particularly memorable? Probably not. But if the campaign succeeds, who cares?

Howard Sewell Recommends

Seamus Walsh

Blog B2BContentMarketing Twitter SeamusWalsh

Writing has to be planted firmly in the terms of how readers are adopting change

Seamus Walsh's Bio

Seamus Walsh founded VAZT Global Inc. in January 2008. Seamus' passion for sales, sales process and excellence enabled him to develop a platform that "finds, cares and feeds" prospects until they are ready to buy. Prior to forming VAZT, Seamus worked in sales and strategic account management for The Hackett Group, a strategic advisory and management consulting firm in Atlanta, For Gartner, a research, advisory and consulting company in Stamford, CT and Cambridge Technology Partners, a web development company, prior to its acquisition by Novell. Seamus resides in Essex Junction, VT with his wife and four children.

Seamus Walsh's Tip

This question forces me to evaluate my writing. Am I rehashing a tired mantra or chasing to the next vernacular like a cluster of seagulls? Realistically, writing has to be planted firmly in the terms of how readers are adopting change.

I believe the best way to make our content memorable is to make it actionable. On my reading list right now is Kristina Halvorson and Ann Rockley, they write in such a way that I get tidbits of very valuable information: A new way of looking at an old problem, an identification of a solution that I could not nail down, or a phrase that I may use as a part of common “industry accepted” nomenclature .

With technology and business architectures changing constantly, our value as writers is to tell a story in such a way that it makes sense to our readers and they can use tidbits to implement strategies and initiatives to achieve their goals.

Seamus Walsh Recommends

Predicting the Great Cloud Shakeout – Don’t Become CloudKill

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:30:00 EST

Setting aside the shameless cloud-washing that’s going on from some vendors, there are a lot of cloud service providers (CSPs – providers of cloud) today. Many of those listed in Sys-Con’s Top 150 report are CSPs, while others are providing extensions, tools or services for clouds. Everybody’s a cloud provider these days – and as [...]

ERP Software Running on Windows Azure Cloud

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST

Acumatica, a provider of web-based accounting, ERP, and CRM software, today announced availability of its SaaS solution which runs on Windows Azure and includes the Acumatica software subscription, the operating environment, backups, upgrades, a service level agreement, and automatic updates. The SaaS solution allows mid-sized businesses to purchase customized ERP software and services without installing and maintaining software or investing in hardware.

The Four Secrets to Choosing Management Training Programs

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:20:00 EST

Have you been tasked with choosing a management or leadership development programme for your people? Are you uncertain about what to look for? What are the pros and cons of sending your people to a hotel for a five day residential or a back to business school?

Oracle CRM On Demand Users Can Now Increase Productivity

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:00:00 EST

Kadient, the experts in sales enablement, today announced that sales teams who use Oracle CRM On Demand can now benefit from Kadient's embedded Sales Playbooks. Kadient now fully integrates with the popular CRM platform, enabling salespeople who use Oracle to have access to situation-specific sales playbooks that provide the content, coaching and tools proven to move deals through the pipeline.

What Is Your Favorite Case Study? Why Do You Like It?

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:00:00 EST

Case studies come in all shapes and forms. Our Panel of Case Study Experts have written and reviewed thousands of case studies over the years. Which case study stands out in their mind? We have invited Case Study Experts to answer this query: "Give one example of your most favorite case study and why you like it".

Cindy King

Blog CindyKing Twitter CindyKing

“Highlight business impact”

Cindy King's Bio

Cindy King is a Cross-Cultural Marketer & International Sales Specialist based in France. She uses her dual background in sales & marketing, in international business development, to help businesses improve their international sales conversion. She is also adept at content marketing, international web marketing and social media marketing.

Cindy King's Tip

My favorite case study is a blog post on Social Media Examiner:
Social Media Marketing Lowers Acquisition Costs 39 Percent for TakeLessons.com

What stands out the most for me in this case study is the great example of how social media marketing works for a real world business. It highlights how businesses need to adapt their marketing to this new environment in order to engage with their clients in a different way. Another great take away from this case study is how businesses should approach the ROI of social media. It's not only about the money you make, but also the money you save.

Of course, most businesses would love to experience similar results to the TakeLessons.com case study, especially when you consider the manageable amount of time invested in their social media tasks. So this case study is also an inspiration.

Cindy King Recommends

Casey Hibbard's book Stories That Sell: Turn Satisfied Customers into Your Most Powerful Sales & Marketing Asset
Jill Konrath's book Selling To Big Companies
Joe Pulizzi's and Newt Barrett's book Get Content. Get Customers.

Casey Hibbard

Blog Stories That Sell Twitter Casey_Hibbard

“Tell a story and prove claims with numbers”

Casey Hibbard's Bio

Casey Hibbard is the founder and principal of Compelling Cases, Inc. Over the past decade, she has created and managed nearly 500 customer stories for dozens of companies, including Level 3, USA.NET, Jobfox, Qwest, Great-West Healthcare, Vocus and Verio. She is the author of the first published book on the topic of customer case studies, Stories That Sell: Turn Satisfied Customers into Your Most Powerful Sales & Marketing Asset.

Casey Hibbard's Tip

Alltel Wireless drives “My Circle” success with sophisticated direct marketing was created for Acxiom, an interactive marketing services company.

This case study is at the top of its class for many reasons:

A well-known company was willing to share its success in a case study.
The design attracts and engages readers. The amount of white space is inviting, as well as the numerous, relevant graphics throughout the story. The layout keeps paragraphs narrow and relatively short, making it more reader-friendly.
A sidebar summarizes the story for readers. Placing it on the first page means readers don't have to search for that information.
A feature story style means the story starts immediately with an engaging feature lead, instead of an "About the Customer" section.
Acxiom has left out an About Us section, keeping it about the customer's story. Instead, the audience can glean that information from other sources.
The story uses descriptive subheads throughout to help readers skim.
The 4-page case study uses 5-6 powerful customer quotes that reinforce the customer's experience.
It includes measurable results - the icing on the cake.

In short, it's extremely attractive, tells a story and proves its claims with numbers.

Casey Hibbard Recommends

For writers and marketers, the first book on customer case studies just came out, Stories That Sell: Turn Satisfied Customers into Your Most Powerful Sales & Marketing Asset, in ebook or printed formats. It covers the complete process of creating a story from start to finish to usage.
Steve Slaunwhite’s Cracking the Case Study Market how-to manual is a great resource for writers looking to profit in this field.
Join LinkedIn Group – Success-Story Marketing Group for discussions about all things related to using customer stories in sales and marketing.

Michele Linn

Blog Savvy B2B Marketing Twitter MicheleLinn

"Highlight results that are quantifiable and relevant to the reader"

Michele Linn's Bio

Michele Linn is a B2B marketing consultant specializing creating and promoting buyer-focused content, such as white papers, research reports, feature articles and case studies. Her business is devoted to making the job of B2B marketers easier by producing effective content and providing insights on how they can market it. Her website is Linn Communications.

Michele Linn's Tip

One of my favorite case studies (Insurance Firm Wards Off Costly CPU Upgrades With Compuware Strobe) is one I worked on when I was a marketing manager for a software company. It was a collaboration between the key people at my company (sales was especially instrumental), and I was very pleased with the results.

Like many case studies, the format of this piece is easy to skim and understand: problem, solution, results. The sidebar summarizes these key points for those who want a quick overview.

I am especially fond of this case study because the results are so quantifiable and relevant to the reader. For the audience of this story, hard-dollar savings was especially important. We understood exactly what data we wanted to pull out, so we developed the questions to get powerful quotes:

“We were able to fine-tune performance and delay our next CPU upgrade for almost 18 months, saving approximately $2 million in hardware and software costs.”
“We can improve performance and put off other upgrades, saving us today probably close to around another $1 million in costs.”

We got a lot of mileage from these quotes and others from the story. There was also a video and press release about the customer experience, which was a nice compliment to the written story.

Michele Linn Recommends

Casey Hibbard's blog Stories that Sell
Casey Hibbard's book Stories That Sell: Turn Satisfied Customers into Your Most Powerful Sales & Marketing Asset
Jonathan Kranz's eBook: Making Your Case: Everything You and Your Colleagues Need to Write Compelling, Lead-Generating Case Studies

Sarah Mitchell

Blog Global Copywriting Twitter globalcopywrite

"Identify a case study with clear subheadings - Problem, Goal and Solution"

Sarah Mitchell's Bio

Sarah Mitchell is a freelance copywriter with a focus on B2B content, specifically case studies and white papers. Combining successful technical, sales and writing careers, Sarah provides a rare perspective to every project. She’s especially interested in working with small and medium-sized businesses. Sarah has lived and worked on five continents. Find her website at Global Copywriting.

Sarah Mitchell's Tip

My favorite case study is from an unlikely source, Cook’s Illustrated magazine. For those of you that don’t know, Cook’s Illustrated is known as America’s Test Kitchen. Taking a scientific approach to every recipe printed, the magazine is nothing less than a monthly compendium of case studies.

Published in March 2006, Old-Fashioned Chocolate Layer Cake identifies itself as a case study with clear subheadings on The Problem, The Goal and The Solution. Written clearly in feature-style prose, the reader is drawn immediately with a reminder of how chocolate cake used to be, “towering slices …slathered with billowy frosting”. The problem succinctly follows, “over the years chocolate cakes have become denser, richer and squatter”. By the time I get to the goal, “old-style, mile-high chocolate layer cake with a tender, airy, open crumb and a soft, billowy frosting”, I’m already making a shopping list.

As with all good case studies, Cook’s Illustrated provides plenty of convincing data. You trust a recipe perfected with 130 attempts. Both failures and successes are detailed in objective language. Key findings are described along with the technical reasons for success. When you’re done reading, you know what works and, importantly, why it works.

The case study ends with clear recommendations in the form of a recipe and systematic instructions with accompanying photos. If you’ve never made a chocolate cake in your life, this case study provides four pages of specific information to guide you. For an experienced baker, Cook’s Illustrated makes you confident you’ve found the perfect recipe.

Sarah Mitchell Recommends

Savvy B2B Marketing
Compelling Cases Blog
Joe Pulizzi’s Blog
Stories that Sell by Casey Hibbard
The Well-Fed Writer by Peter Bowerman
LinkedIn Groups: Copywriting Success Summit and Success-Story Marketing

Stephanie Tilton

Blog Savvy B2B Marketing Twitter StephanieTilton

“Produce a range of pieces to address different audience interests”

Stephanie Tilton's Bio

Stephanie Tilton is an expert case study and white paper writer who helps B2B companies advance the sales cycle by engaging prospects and customers. Harnessing her unique blend of technical knowledge, marketing savvy, and writing skills, Stephanie has crafted nearly 100 case studies and white papers for leading brands such as Akamai Technologies, EMC, Macromedia, Novell, SAP, and Symantec. Her website is Ten Ton Marketing.

Stephanie Tilton's Tip

My favorite case studies focus on the customer's success and help readers envision how their situation can change for the better.

SAP does a great job of telling these types of stories. In fact, SAP takes an interesting approach to showcasing customer successes. It produces a range of pieces to address different audience interests, from a one-page customer profile to in-depth stories that follow the typical "problem-solution-results" formula. In the middle lie Business Transformation Studies, which illustrate how SAP has helped customers, well, transform their businesses. These Business Transformation Studies are formatted to appeal to both skimmers and readers, as well as to business and technical audiences. In the sample I've chosen, you'll see the following elements used to great effect:

A headline and pull quote emphasizing the main customer benefit
A shaded box summarizing customer and solution information
Bullets highlighting key challenges, reasons the solution was selected, implementation highlights, and benefits
A four-line summary encapsulating the story
A one-page narrative telling the story in a compelling fashion

Key takeaway: Focus your case studies on your customers and format the stories so readers can digest information the way they prefer.

Stephanie Tilton Recommends

Casey Hibbard's book Stories That Sell: Turn Satisfied Customers into Your Most Powerful Sales & Marketing Asset
Casey Hibbard's blog Stories that Sell
6 Steps to Successful Case Studies

Recommended Resources from Experts on Case Studies

Blogs

Casey Hibbard's blog Stories that Sell
Cindy King's blog CindyKing
Michele Linn's blog Savvy B2B Marketing
Stephanie Tilton's blog Savvy B2B Marketing
Jonathan Kranz's blog Kranzcom
Sarah Mitchell's blog Global Copywriting
Joe Pulizzi’s Blog

Books

Casey Hibbard's book Stories that Sell
Jill Konrath's book Selling To Big Companies
Joe Pulizzi's and Newt Barrett's book Get Content. Get Customers.
The Well-Fed Writer by Peter Bowerman

Others

Steve Slaunwhite’s Cracking the Case Study Market
LinkedIn Group – Success-Story Marketing Group
Stephanie Tilton's 6 Steps to Successful Case Studies
Jonathan Kranz's eBook: Making Your Case: Everything You and Your Colleagues Need to Write Compelling, Lead-Generating Case Studies
Your Colleagues Need to Write Compelling, Lead-Generating Case Studies

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SAP Helps Energy Providers Prepare for Transition to Smart Grids

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:11:00 EDT

SAP AG has announced that utility companies across the globe are adopting SAP AMI® Integration for Utilities software in 2009. The offering, introduced in May 2009, helps utility companies better integrate their metering processes with their backend systems, providing end-to-end clarity into energy usage patterns and translating into operational cost savings as well as reduced cost of ownership for metering solutions. The software also benefits consumers by providing them more insight into their energy consumption and by enabling them to better manage and conserve energy.

Sales Executive Enablement - From the Trenches

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:37:00 EDT

This week, I've been covering my learnings from the SAVO Group Summit. You can also read my post on John Aiello's Introduction of Fluency and Scott Santucci's escalating the sales conversation. Today, I'd like to share some insights from the trenches. The summit invited company representatives to share their experiences with sales enablement. They had interesting things to share, so...

Working on Monaco Media Forum

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:53:00 EDT

It's my fourth year going to Monte Carlo for the Monaco Media Forum. The MMF is an invitation-only get together of about 350 digierati from the media and marketing worlds. Groupe Publicis (the number 4 advertising holding company but number 1 in digital revenue) and HSH Prince Albert II are the main patrons, along with Microsoft, Lenovo, Orange, Google (YouTube) and Booz & Co. I've helped with the agenda for a couple of years now. There will be a special panel on media clouds that will include Media Dojo alum Sean Knapp from Ooyala among others. At the event, I'll launch the MD Guide to Cloud Computing for Media and Marketing. The Guide will be a first stop for business layer media and marketing professionals who need to get a handle on the foundation concepts, tech, companies, and impact of cloud computing on their industry.

Amazon Payments Announces Amazon Mobile Payments Service for Developers

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 03:03:00 EDT

Amazon Payments LLC, an Amazon.com company, has announced the availability of the Amazon Mobile Payments Service (Amazon MPS), providing developers, merchants and distributors of mobile applications an easy way to process payments from mobile devices and extend Amazon’s 1-Click checkout experience to their customers. Amazon MPS enables tens of millions of Amazon customers to use the existing payment and shipping information in their Amazon.com accounts to make purchases from their mobile devices.

The Godfather Guide to Direct Marketing

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:00:00 EDT

I was perversely inspired to write this because of a recent gorgeous direct mailing I received from local French restaurant. They did a lot of things right. There was some beautiful photography that captured the essence of this charming little bistro. They described how the restaurant and its cuisine were uniquely appealing. They shared some impressive awards and recognitions for their excellence. They included their Web address. And, they even provided a little map that showed me exactly how to find it.

Atomic Public Relations Opens Office in London

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:30:00 EDT

The first of four new Atomic PR offices planned opened this month in London with an initial staff of five, and will serve as the hub for Atomic's European operations. The office's starting client portfolio includes global security leader ArcSight, global smart grid technology provider Echelon Corporation, and Roamware, a global provider of voice and data roaming solutions. In addition to early stage capital, Huntsworth is providing managerial and operational support as well as access to its network of wholly owned agencies in major markets outside the U.S. where Atomic does not presently have its own offices

Added Value Launches Global Marketing Initiatives

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:00:00 EDT

Added Value will also launch Character Creation, a new brand development approach developed to equip clients and their agencies with a more vivid and inspiring portrait of the qualities which turn well-known products into famous brands; and thirdly, a specialist innovation approach, armed with a proprietary new trends offer, and a hi-speed innovation process to help clients get innovation projects out of the pipe and into the market faster than ever before.

Cloud Talk with Peter Coffee: What's Next for the Cloud?

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:00:00 EDT

Recently I had the pleasure of speaking with Peter Coffee, of eWeek fame. Peter, as industry veterans may be aware, was eWeek’s Technology Editor, and is now Director of Platform Research for Salesforce.com, a leader in cloud computing. Our conversation began with my blatant attempt at gaining insight about Salesforce's strategic roadmap, knowing full well only the CEO can answer those type of questions, but you never know what you can glean from a non-response. Hey, I gave it a shot.

Anatomy of Cloud Computing Platform

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:30:00 EDT

As the IT operations continue to evolve and transform the business towards agility and adaptability to ever changing rules of marketplace, the efficiency of any IT operation is of paramount significance. The phrase ‘time to market' has a completely new meaning in today's dynamic business environment where the only constant is change. This rapidly changing environment has lead the IT and business leaders alike to re-think the ‘procurement to provisioning' process with one goal in mind - Efficient use of resources.

The Fair and the Unfair Inequities of Business

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:30:00 EDT

I have operated my own small businesses for nearly 25 years and I have a theory: the problems remain the same, only the amounts get bigger. I am a small business professional working, in many cases, with the largest businesses in the country – FORTUNE 500 territory. Our small business is buying the same products and services [...]

The Power of Simplicity…

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:00:00 EDT

Driving home from the airport and listening to sports talk radio, the discussion was on great play-by-play sports broadcasters. To my delight, one of my favorites was on the panel voicing his opinions — and, it DOES have an impact on your career and business! Indianapolis is lucky because one of the great radio basketball announcers has made his career calling the games of the Indiana Pacers. His name is Mark Boyle, and it would be difficult to find anyone better at his craft. I’ve met Mark a ...

It's the Little Things

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:00:00 EDT

Before we start cutting price to match the competition, slimming services to make up for the lost margin - maybe we should think again. What little thing can we do to make the customer difference? My trainer is always better with caffeine in hand, so I was motivated to find her coffee. I stopped at a little Ma and Pa gas station - the fourth place I'd tried. The others were out of brew and too busy to make more on this particular morning.

All Seven Martial Arts Lessons That You Can Apply to Business

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:30:00 EDT

Over the last few weeks, I presented a lesson or two a week for my readers. For your convenience, here are all seven of the martial arts lessons that I believe you can apply to business. Lesson One: Laying a Foundation – Hapkido is a building program that relies on previous steps along the way to put you in the position to learn the nuances. The thing that frustrates people in training is that if you don’t know the fundamentals and haven’t laid a foundation, you will never master the powerful nuances. This takes a great deal of dedication and hard study but the good news is that you can always go back to that foundation when you are in a pinch. It’s always there waiting for you and it works.

Get Greater Business Insights and Relieve IT Cost Pressure?

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:00:00 EDT

With heightened pressure on today’s businesses from the current global economic woes, figuring out what to do next on many business and technology decision-making levels, and making sure they are the right moves, can make or break your business. Take a moment to consider the following questions.

Software Flexibility in the Cloud - Part 4 of 5

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 06:30:00 EDT

Platform as a service (PaaS) refers to the tools used to build software applications (software programs) in the cloud. Think of it as a cloud-based development environment for building and managing software applications. These custom-built applications are then hosted on infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

Service-now.com New SaaS for ITSM Upgrade

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:00:00 EDT

Service-now.com EMEA Executive Briefing and User Conference -- Service-now.com, the pioneer of modern SaaS for IT service automation, today announced details of the Service-now.com Fall 2009 release scheduled for Sept. 25, 2009. The new features are designed to help IT service management (ITSM) organizations improve IT service quality based on immediate customer feedback gained through interactive knowledge management and customer satisfaction surveys.

Spam is Not Marketing Content

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:00:00 EDT

Okay, I've had about enough of this mindless, self-serving, me-me-me focused spamming. It was bad enough when it happened via email. Now it's happening with alarming frequency on LinkedIn, Twitter and Blogs. Can't people restrain themselves? Do they really think that pelting people with irrelevant messaging is going to help their cause...or their companies? Nobody likes it, so KNOCK IT...

Will Customers Nominate Themselves as Stories?

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:11:00 EDT

If asked, will customers submit themselves as possible case study or success story candidates? From consumer-products companies to B2B to nonprofit organizations, many now actively solicit stories with self-service “Share Your Story” links on their Web sites. Apple created a... Casey Hibbard

Cordys Process Factory

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 13:15:00 EDT

Cordys Process Factory offers easy exchange of situational business apps for customers and partners

Cordys, a leading provider of software for business process innovation has launched Cordys Process Factory Marketplace, where anyone can find or publish MashApps or situational business applications deployable in the Cordys Process Factory Cloud.

This new marketplace for applications ensures users of any organisation quickly find and deploy useful applications without the need for programming or complex integrations. ISVs can use the Cordys Process Factory to develop their own channels for distribution of applications in the Cloud. Telecom Operators and Service Providers will use Cordys Process Factory Marketplace to provide a differentiated offering of public Cloud services.

The market for business applications offered as a service in the Cloud is growing rapidly. According to Forrester up to 20% of all business applications offered by ISVs will be in a SaaS deployment by 2016 and up to 15% of corporate middleware will be replaced by PaaS infrastructure in private clouds.1

Jan Baan, CEO of Cordys: “The Cordys Process Factory Marketplace allows any organisation to mix and match existing on-premise processes run on enterprise software with services and applications from the Web. This concept enables companies to improve dramatically the way their business can respond to changes in the market.”

“We believe that PaaS will start to replace corporate middleware infrastructures in the very near future. Cordys now offers a multipurpose PaaS platform that bridges the gap between the Cloud and any ERP or legacy system. Instead of investing large amounts of money in time-consuming projects to change enterprise software, companies can now quickly create and deploy their own situational applications,” added Jan Baan.

Cordys Process Factory Marketplace offers extended capabilities such as ratings and reviews by users, easy installation and integration with the Google Apps™ suite of communication and collaboration tools.

1 Platform-As-A-Service Market Sizing by Stefan Ried, Ph.D, Forrester. July 13, 2009

-ENDS-

NOTES TO EDITORS
About Cordys
Cordys is a global provider of software for business process innovation and Enterprise Cloud Orchestration. The industry-leading Cordys Business Operations Platform (BOP) consists of a complete suite for next generation Business Process Management (BPM), Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) and innovative SaaS Deployment Frameworks (SDF), delivering a complete Platform as a Service (PaaS) solution. It includes an open, integrated set of tools & technologies including Composite Application Framework (CAF), Master Data Management (MDM) and a SOA Grid. The Cordys platform and its cutting-edge Cloud technology empowers customers to dramatically improve the speed of change, fundamentally altering the way they innovate their Business Operations to achieve a true customer-centric philosophy. Global 2000 companies worldwide have selected Cordys to achieve business performance improvements such as increased productivity, reduced time to market, higher security and faster response to ever-changing market demands. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Cordys is a global company with offices in the USA, the UK, Germany, China, India and Israel.

www.cordys.com

For further information:
Richard Merrin
Spreckley Partners
T: 020 7388 9988
E: merrin@spreckley.co.uk

SYS-CON White Paper: 10 Steps to a Successful CRM Implementation

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:00:00 EDT

A CRM solution can have an enormously positive effect on your business's bottom line, but a lot can go wrong during a rollout if you haven't planned properly. Follow these 10 steps to help ensure that your CRM implementation is a success, from the planning stages to post-deployment improvements.

SYS-CON White Paper: CRM Comparison Guide

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:15:00 EDT

Download this side-by-side comparison guide that breaks down the industry's top 15 CRM players (including Salesforce.com, RightNow Technologies, NetSuite, Microsoft, Entellium, SugarCRM and Oracle) so you can quickly and easily compare the features and costs of each.

SYS-CON White Paper: Enterprise PBX Comparison Guide

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:00:00 EDT

Compare leading VoIP Phone System and IP PBX companies like Avaya, Fonality, Nortel, Siemens and more, all in one place. VoIP News has prepared a detailed comparison of small and medium business phone and IP PBX systems. The guide examines: Installation & Features, Management & Administration, Security, Support, and Pricing.

Callidus Software Launches New Commissions Manager Solution on Force.com

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:00:00 EDT

Callidus Software has unveiled its Callidus Commissions Manager solution. Commissions Manager is a 100% native Force.com solution that delivers a compelling, easy-to-use application that can be rapidly deployed and can help companies drive adoption of Salesforce CRM. The solution enables sales professionals to manage commissions and claims as part of their day-to-day opportunity management. Callidus Commission Manager is now available on the AppExchange at www.salesforce.com/appexchange.

Stop Being a Marketer

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:25:00 EDT

Marketing rules are changing all around us. The winners in this new world will be the early adopters who understand the new breed of buyer, take advantage of better and cheaper technology, and deliver problem-solving content. It's time for marketers to replace traditional publishers. Make sure you aren’t the last one on your block to make the transformation.

Hire Execs Who Love Your Product

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:30:00 EDT

That's the title of Dave Winer's most recent post. To which I say: Amen. Bunches of people who work for a company are going to be doing it primarily for the money. That's how our economy works. But if you're at the top and you're doing it just for the bucks, ...

A Three-Step Process to Getting Started on Twitter…

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 23:00:00 EDT

Because Chris had reviewed “Collapse of Distinction,” he and I have shared a dialogue. He’s interesting, smart, funny, and profound. In other words, an extraordinarily cool guy. I noticed that he was having a Tweet-up…an in-person “get-together” for people who follow one another on Twitter…for those who had been a part of a conference where Chris was speaking. I sent him a Tweet, asking if it would be appropriate for me to come by, even though I was not attending the meeting he was addressing — as I had a speech of my own that same time. Being the nice guy he is, he immediately told me to come by, and he’d buy a drink.

The Ten Attributes of the Magnetic Sales Professional

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 03:59:00 EDT

Google “what it takes to be a successful salesperson” and one will get 121,000 different perspectives on what it takes to be one. However, in today’s competitive landscape what companies are truly looking for is, the rare individuals who can overachieve the sales and revenue goals, retain and increase the share of wallet of the existing client base and have the ability to drive new business in the unsold prospect arena. Sales Organizations want Magnetic Sales Professionals not simply, successful…

New Research Report - Netbook Shipments Twice as High as Laptops

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:45:00 EDT

In Q2’09, the total notebook PC market posted strong Q/Q and Y/Y growth as units surged past the 38 million mark, as reported in the DisplaySearch Q3’09 Quarterly Notebook PC Shipment and Forecast Report. The mini-note PC (netbook) market was particularly strong, growing 40% Q/Q, which was twice the impressive 22% Q/Q growth rate of larger notebook PCs.

A Winning Strategy for Landing Big-Name Customer Stories

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:45:00 EDT

The key to landing big-name customers for customer stories is finding what motivates each customer (on an individual, departmental or company level). Simply reminding the customer they receive free publicity may not be enough. Here are a few tips for using the win-win storytelling approach.

Dubli Gift Card Xpress Auctions

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:45:00 EDT

Dubli Xpress auctions for gift cards have yielded savings from the face value of from 5% to 99%. Gift cards from stores vary widely but the best deals seem to be from clothing stores such as the GAP and Macys. Gift cards from credit card companies, namely American Express, Mastercard and Visa ususlly go for a 10% savings in the Dubli Xpress auctions. The exception being Mastercard where you can get a 18-20% savings. You can see the stats and results at:

Where to Plug Your Personal Brand

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:00:00 EDT

Consistency builds brands, and this is especially true when it comes to personal branding. Once you have identified your own one-or-two-word personal brand and have developed the supporting brand statement or pitch, it is essential that you communicate them consistently...