Who Owns Your Linked In Profile?
Compliance is good, right? So there shouldn’t be any controversy about a new tool that enables compliance. So far, there hasn’t been much resistance to corporate social media policies or to the use of monitoring tools for Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites. On Wednesday, however, a press release from compliance software vendor Actiance announcing some new LinkedIn features for its Socialite social media monitoring and management software resulted in this headline: Actiance: All your LinkedIn profiles belong to us That isn’t exactly what the company says in its press release. What the Actiance press release said is: “Actiance today Read More
If Words Have Two Meanings
“There’s a sign on the wall, but she wants to be sure ‘Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings…” –Copyright, 1970, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Stairway to Heaven When words have two meanings it can lead to a hit song — or a compliance nightmare. Marketing people tend to like words. And, as a group, they’re pretty good at defining, understanding, and using them effectively. When it comes to complying with rules and regulations, sometimes words have two meanings – and understanding what they mean is critical for marketers who work in regulated industries like insurance, financial services, health Read More
Last Call: Free Webinar Covers Changing “Rules of the Road” for Digital & Social Media
Anyone who works in insurance or financial services already knows that the rules and regulations seem to get more complex every year. So just what are the rules of the road for using the power of digital (web, email, mobile) and social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) to reach prospects and customers? That question got more timely this week as two new bills that would limit the way in which companies collect and use data about Web, mobile, email, and social media users moved a step closer to passage in the U.S. Senate. Many sales and marketing professionals worry about how to Read More
Putting the Sales Enablement Pieces Together
Sales enablement is the delivery of the right information to the right person in the right format to assist in moving sales opportunities forward. Sounds pretty simple, right? It isn’t. Assembling the right sales message is a complex process in a large distributed marketing organization — especially in regulated industries. Four or five distinct processes and roles are involved, and without clear planning and a smooth process built on a technology platform designed to streamline the process, it can seem nearly impossible. Marketing creates the information. Management (legal, compliance, HR) reviews it. Marketing publishes it (through a sales portal, Read More
Using Distributed Marketing Technology to End the Battle Between Sales and Marketing
How many times have you heard comments like this from sales people? Marketing never gives us the right information we need to close the deal. We have to spend hours and hours creating our own customized content to sell effectively. It takes too long to find the right information and get permission to customize it for our prospects. Chances are you’ve heard those complaints just about as often as you’ve heard the opposite coming from the corporate marketing department. Sales never uses the approved materials and the brand is compromised because of inconsistent messages. We have to spend hours and Read More
Connecting the Distributed Marketing Dots to Drive Revenue
Research giant IDC says that 80% of the content that marketing generates isn’t used by the sales team – and the percentage is even higher in complex distributed marketing and multi-channel environments. In addition, customers tell researchers at Forrester that sales reps aren’t prepared for their initial meeting 50% of the time. Last, but hardly least, sales people surveyed by Gartner say that marketing leaves them guessing about what customers want to know at least 50% of the time. Clearly, there’s a massive disconnect going on within many distributed marketing organizations, or the primary technology research firms wouldn’t each be Read More
