The Dogshit Bar: A Memorable Market Research Concept
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen market research that suffers from one key problem. It goes something like this: What do you think of PRODUCT’s user interface? Do you think PRODUCT should be part of suite or a standalone module? Is the value of PRODUCT best measured per-user or per-bite? Is the PRODUCT’s […]
The Evolution of Marketing Thanks to SaaS
I was talking with my friend Tracy Eiler, author of Aligned to Achieve, the other day and she showed me a chart that they were using at InsideView to segment customers. The chart was a quadrant that mapped customers on two dimensions: renewal rate and retention rate. The idea was to use the chart to […]
Top Tech Trends for 2017
For many years, like most analyst and/or analyst firms I know, I’ve published some sort of annual “predictions” at the start of the new year. This year, in my new role (I can still say “new” for the rest of January, my 1 year anniversary isn’t till tomorrow) I’ve put together a small team (Rob […]
Why Macy’s Struggles Expose a Deeper Crisis in B2C Marketing Automation
Tragic news has just come out stating that over 10,000 people will lose their jobs at Macy’s. The iconic retailer is struggling to adapt to a more modern and relevant form of consumer engagement and commerce. Contrary to what the media suggests, the lessons here aren’t just about transitioning to online sales. Retailers are […]
What Marketers Can Learn from Donald Trump
While we won’t go into my views on the election here (see my Twitter account if you want color in that department), I will say that all marketers and solution sellers can learn one “yuge” lesson from Donald Trump: understanding your audience and talking to them in their terms will take you a long, long […]
The end of marketing
This is going to be political but you won’t be able to tell which side I’m on (if you choose to read on). You might ask, why on earth would I get involved even tangentially in politics right now and the simple answer is that it impacts CRM and I have a viewpoint. But as […]
Dreamforce 2016 Post Two: The Recap
Dreamforce 2016 was as action packed as expected. To close this one out, I’ll recap the announcements and dig deeper into a few subjects that I mentioned in my 1st post. Salesforce Einstein was the big topic of course, but there were several other interesting announcements and even a few surprises. Before getting into the […]
Dreamforce 2016 – Post One
As I’m headed into another Dreamforce event I plan to keep you updated on the happenings this week. As usual Dreamforce promises to be a whirlwind of activity and a high energy event. I attend a lot of conferences and while it can be a grind sometimes, Dreamforce is usually a high point in the […]
Aligned to Achieve: A B2B Marketing Classic
Tracy Eiler and Andrea Austin’s Aligned to Achieve came out yesterday and it’s a great book on an important and all too often overlooked topic: how to align sales and marketing. I’m adding it to my modern SaaS executive must-read book list, which is now: Aligned to Achieve by Tracy Eiler and Andrea Austin Customer Success […]
Lead Nurturing, Fast and Slow
I’ll borrow the title of one of my favorite books (Thinking, Fast and Slow) to make a few important points about lead nurturing in this post. While there is a strong argument that buyers should be nurtured before, during, and after the initial sale, I’m going to speak in this post about pre-sales lead nurturing, the purpose […]
