Teen Internet users are becoming disenchanted with Facebook, thanks mostly to the growing population of adults on the social network, the mindless updates flooding their News Feeds and the “drama” that happens on the sites. They have a hard time managing their reputations and are moving on to Twitter. What does this all mean for targeted social media ads? Find out …

The post Teens ‘Waning Enthusiasm’ for Facebook Benefits Twitter: Survey appeared first on Chief Marketer.

Why did Yahoo spend $1.1 billion to buy Tumblr? Two words: native advertising. For those who need a quick primer on what native advertising is, here’s a simple definition: “It’s an ad whose form and delivery is identical to the content environment in which it is served.” In other words, it’s nothing like the billboards, takeovers and banner ads that disrupt a user’s experience. Here’s what you need to know.

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Seven years of working with landing pages can teach a marketer many lessons. The details in this article were presented last week by the author at the Interactivity Digital Conference in Miami. Among them are: people matter more than software—10% of marketing budgets should be spent on tools, while 90% should be spent on people. Good lessons here for your marketing toolbox.

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There’s widespread consensus that dramatic changes in the business landscape have made the role of CMO ever more complex. Solutions have proved to be in much shorter supply with prescriptions ranging from replacing the CMO with a chief customer officer to doing away with the CMO altogether. Given marketing’s enhanced profile, the Kellogg School of Management believes the next wave of CMOs must accomplish three core objectives to be successful.

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As more Americans buy Internet-connected TVs, interactive ads will soon be popping up on screens. In this video interview, Opera Mediaworks CEO Mahi de Silva joins Digits with a look at the next wave of mobile and interactive marketing. Some 35.1 million households will own one Internet-connected TV by 2014. Get smarter here.

The post The Future of TV Ads appeared first on Chief Marketer.

Within minutes of major disasters like the tornado in Moore, OK, businesses look to see how they too can help. In Oklahoma any number of companies have stepped up running various promotions, like Buffalo Wild Wings, to benefit the victims. Home Depot is serving as a location where animals found in the wreckage are being transported.  Here’s a sampling of what others like Buffalo Wild Wings are doing.

The post Local Companies Help Moore, OK Victims appeared first on Chief Marketer.

“The one thing you know about soccer fans—and I think this is true for sports fans overall—is that they’re really focused on their team,” says David DeVore, CEO of FanCentric. The challenge for his company was to provide emails that are relevant to fans based on their favorite team and their geographic location, as opposed to generic email blasts from the league.

The DNA: fandom and location

Those two bits of information—the fan’s favorite club and their location—informs the DNA of the tailored weekly emails to fans of the league’s 19 teams.  This data is used to populate each email with dynamic content – e.g., video highlights and photos of players from the fan’s favorite teams, and broadcast schedules specific to their location.

For example, a Seattle Sounders FC fan living in Wisconsin would receive emails designed in Sounder Blue and Rave Green (the official team colors) that feature an up-to-the-minute broadcast schedule with information on which network in the area is airing the match.

If a fan hasn’t voiced their loyalty to a specific team or indicated where they live, the footers of the emails they receive will ask them to share this information to get more relevant messaging. The footer emphasizes the value of personalization and puts the focus on the fan, DeVore says.

The goal of these emails is to bring meld a subscriber’s data with different types of content to generate automated emails that are seamless and elegant, and don’t come off as being unusual or programmed.

Future improvements

While these emails were built around broadcast schedules, in the future FanCentric intends to expand their scope by focusing more on team-specific news and content, relegating broadcast schedules to just one section of a more robust newsletter.

Currently, each of these emails includes a Twitter hashtag specific to the featured match of the week, but DeVore says the company hopes to make these emails more social by including real-time Twitter feeds and Facebook updates.

The real-time nature of soccer is a big factor for these emails. DeVore notes that the cycle of the run-up to a match, the duration of a match and the news of the results happens quickly.

“Sports and the way fans interact with sports is happening in real time, and it has a fairly limited lifecycle,” DeVore says when discussing one of the big lessons learned from FanCentric’s experience with these MLS emails so far.  The challenge, then, is to build a smooth mechanism to bring real-time information in outbound communications.

“The ability for marketers to have data in real time and have content in real time so they’re able to bring that content into email marketing faster and more efficiently than we might have been a few years ago has been huge,” DeVore says. This real-time trend will be a “huge driving change in the marketing industry in the coming years.”

The post Major League Soccer Scores With Personalized Email appeared first on Chief Marketer.

By the time most purchasers start talking to a salesperson, they’ve already done their own research via web searches, social media, online reviews and numerous other sources.

“The way we do business has changed drastically,” said John Neeson, managing director of Sirius Decisions, at the recent Sirius Decisions Summit in San Diego. “Salespeople thing they’re going into a discovery call and suddenly find them self neck deep in negotiations.”

A Sirius Decisions survey found that salespeople cited buyers being more informed than ever, thanks to access to more data and peer networks online as their number one concern. This was followed by buyers requiring more and earlier ROI, and buyers being less likely to engage vendors earlier, instead preferring to try and figure out things on their own.

For salespeople, key inhibitors to their success include insufficient leads, too many products or offerings to know, and not enough knowledge about their industry or solution.

“Prospects want to speak to a salesperson who can quickly communicate the value of their [brand’s] proposition,” said Neeson.

This means that salespeople no longer focus as much attention on the education phase of the process when it comes to nurturing leads, said Neeson. “Thought leadership and subject matter expertise are their best shot. That’s a dramatic change. Salespeople have said they want to focus more on where they can be more effective.”

When buyers get to the point where they are considering solutions, they have already positioned in their mind the vendor and their offering. “They’ve probably even looked the salesperson up on linked in, looked at the company website and put them in a bucket,” said Neeson.

At this point, it is important to be able to demonstrate an ROI for your solution, but it must be highly customized to the prospect’s needs. “Buyers have connected more with their peers at this vendor selection phase, and [are listening to] industry analysts,” said Neeson. “More people are involved in the decision process than ever before.”

For salespeople, this means that essentially the top third of the buying process is gone, meaning it is essential to try and get into the buyer’s journey earlier in the game.

“Marketing has to be more effective and there must be more alignment between sales and marketing,” Neeson said, noting that salespeople say they would benefit from pipeline acceleration programs, better leads and initiatives they can launch themselves to connect with buyers. “They want help doing their own marketing.”

Not surprisingly, Sirius Decisions’ buyer research shows the same thing, from the other side of thee coin. Buyers admit they are talking with peers in their personal networks in the research phase in social media, and want content to help in their process. “They want inbound marketing,” said Neeson, noting things like ROI calculators and demos are particularly appealing. “They’ll respond to outbound, but it needs to be in the form of content like case studies and analyst reports.”

Sirius Decisions’ buyer survey showed that when the CEO is making the decision to purchase, previous company experiences were the number one factor, followed by the influence of customer references, the relationship with the salesperson, the perception of the brand and then what peers say.

“Peer opinions were more important during the education process, but not so much when making the decision,” said Neeson.

How can salespeople get buyers’ trust? According to the survey, the key is demonstrating deep expertise about their industry (35%), followed by deep expertise about the buyer’s company (33%), showing he/she cares about the buyer’s persona success (21%) and then cultivating a personal relationship with the buyer (8%).

The post B2B Buyer’s Journey No Longer Begins With the Salesperson appeared first on Chief Marketer.

• New list to market in past 7 days
• Exclusive to list manager
• Data card quality score 85 or higher on NextMark
• Data card publicly available online

Coastal Angler Blow-In Program

Coastal Angler magazine is a resource for outdoor enthusiasts interested in purchasing rods, reels, tackle and other gear for fishing.

Universe: 5,600,000

Price:  $25/M

Contact: Adrea Rubin Media, Joe Frick, joef@adrearubin.com, (646) 487-3768

Datacard: http://lists.nextmark.com/market?page=order/online/datacard&id=380000

IT Executives from TechCentric

These IT professionals have registered on the TechCentric suite of websites.

Universe: 922,368

Price: $150/M

Selections: Number of employees, gender, geography, Hipanic, job title

Contact: The Information Refinery, Brahm Schenkman, bschenkman@inforefinery.com, (201) 529-2600 x29

Datacard: http://lists.nextmark.com/market?page=order/online/datacard&id=380945

Museum of Modern Art Design Store Catalog

These mail order buyers purchase unusual and modern items for themselves and as gifts.

Universe: 108,011

Price:  $105/M

Selections: $150+, $100+, $75+ and $50+ buyers; gender; SCF/State/Zip

Contact: Chilcutt Direct Marketing, Kayle Plotkin, kaylep@cdmlist.com, (405) 726-8794

Datacard: http://lists.nextmark.com/market?page=order/online/datacard&id=379735

SME Small Business

The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) is the world’s leading professional society supporting manufacturing education.

Universe: 251,525

Price:  $150/M

Selections: Geographic, industry SIC/NAICS, job function/title, phone number, technical interests

Contact: Infogroup Enterprise Services, Mike Rovello, mike.rovello@infogroup.com, (402) 836-5639


Datacard: http://lists.nextmark.com/market?page=order/online/datacard&id=380959

The Word Among Us Regional Masterfile

These Catholic subscribers look to The Word Among Us for inspirational guidance.

Universe: 425,024

Price: $95/M

Selections: Gender, geographical, Zip

Contact: Estee Marketing Group, Deana Snyder, dsnyder@esteemarketing.com, (914) 235-7080 x306

Datacard: http://lists.nextmark.com/market?page=order/online/datacard&id=380978

Chris DeMartine is director of business development at NextMark and president of the VT/NH Marketing Group.

The post Chief Marketer Listline May 22 appeared first on Chief Marketer.

These winning promotions are heralded as among the best in the world. Their creators and their work are honored through editorial articles and become a permanent staple in the annual PROMO Sourcebook that both brand marketers and agencies alike keep on hand as a reference.

This year will be no exception with winners and finalists honored through profiles both online and in print, as well as in the 2014 PROMO Sourcebook.

Take a look back at last year’s winners and finalists and be inspired to enter your own work! You’ve worked hard. You got results. Now get the recognition you deserve.

The call for entries for the 2013 Pro Awards ends May 30. Visit www.pro-awards.com to start your entry today.

The post You Worked Hard. You Got Results. Now Get the Recognition You Deserve. appeared first on Chief Marketer.