The Inbound Marketing / Marketing Content Management Crowd – A Fourth Camp?

What is inbound marketing, how is it tied to marketing content management and what does this all mean for marketers? Moreover, is this a real ecosystem of solutions, or is it merely a Hubspot phenomenon? Adam Needles tackles these questions in a new post.

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Top 20 Integrated Marketing Management Platforms 2 of 3: Assessing Marketing Needs + Evaluating Vendors

This is the second in a three-part series of posts on integrated marketing management platforms. In this post, Adam Needles presents high-level thoughts for marketers on approaches to analyzing their needs and to selecting a platform that is the right ‘fit’ for their organization.

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Marketing Technology and Marketers … An Invitation to Participate in a New Book

I am in the process of writing a book – tentatively titled Connected Marketing – that is for marketers, that covers the topic of marketing technology and that is meant to help marketers deploy and use technology in a substantially-different way than they do today. What are your thoughts on the direction I’m taking? What else should I be considering, researching or thinking about to maximize the value of this book to marketers? This piece presents my initial outline and invites feedback.

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Top 20 Integrated Marketing Management Platforms 1 of 3: Marketers’ Needs + Technology Landscape

Adam Needles defines the integrated marketing management platform segment both from the standpoint of marketers’ needs and from the technology landscape of vendors. This is the first in a three-part series of posts on integrated marketing management platforms. The next post will present insights for marketers into analyzing their needs and selecting a platform that is the right ‘fit’ for their organization. The final post will present snapshots of the top 20 vendors I’m watching and that I believe are representative, forward-thinking leaders in this segment.

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Why ‘Cloud Services’ Matter to Marketers

What are cloud services … really .. and how can they help marketers gain control over customer-brand dialogue and achieve a holistic view of their brands through intelligent integration of Marketing Infrastructure? Adam Needles explores the potential of cloud services to help marketers finally start to get a handle on the myriad IT and Internet-based resources, communication channels and data sources necessary to execute complex, integrated marketing communication programs … without needing to become experts in the technology.

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Next Generation of Marketing Services Agencies 2 of 2: Exemplary Firms

Are there any firms out there, today, that exemplify the vision of a next-generation marketing services agency? The truth is that no single agency, today, is at the stage of sophistication that embraces all five ‘pillars’ … yet. But there are quite a few that are moving in the right direction and that have embraced different combinations of these pillars. Adam Needles discusses some of the firms he’s watching and that he believes are forward-thinking leaders in the next-generation marketing services agency world.

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Next Generation of Marketing Services Agencies 1 of 2: Pillars and Barriers

The business environment for ‘traditional’ agencies is changing … radically … and overnight. What is causing this ‘plague’ of Biblical proportions throughout the agency world, and how can agencies overcome this situation by preparing for the next-generation of client expectations? Adam Needles discusses the key pillars for a next-generation agency, as well as some of the barriers they will face in part one of this two-part series.

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Top 20 Cross-channel Marketing Execution Platforms?

Adam Needles presents initial thoughts on a working list of leading cross-channel marketing execution management platforms. This piece is focused on (1) better identifying the state of this technology segment, (2) building out the list and (3) presenting insights into their strengths and weaknesses.

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Marketing Personalization 2.0

The whole point of marketing is to build a relationship between a customer and a brand through which both the customer and the company behind that brand derive benefit. It is a direct, one-on-one and mutual commercial exchange; for the customer, the brand is experienced at a very personal level. Yet so much of marketing practice and technology infrastructure seems to focus on de-personalizing and scaling marketing communication to as large of an un-segmented population as possible. Adam Needles examines how marketers can make both scale and personalization co-exist as hallmarks of every marketing program?

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