Scott Brinker

Content marketing + conversion optimization

February 14, 2011 / Marketing Tactics / By Scott Brinker / 1 Comment

I’m a big believer in the power of “intersections,” as described by Frans Johansson in his inspiring book on innovation, The Medici Effect. The intersection of marketing and the-domain-formerly-known-as-IT is one, of course. But recently I’ve also been exploring some fascinating ideas by mixing concepts from the 131 different kinds of marketing. Often, many of these subdisciplines of marketing grow independently of each other. Ultimately, however, they’re all focused on building connections and bonds with …

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Marketing technology at a 113-year-old firm (interview)

February 9, 2011 / Interviews / By Scott Brinker / Leave a Comment

Disruptive innovation can be exhausting. Exciting. Full of opportunity. But also relentless hard work. And with all the disruptive innovation wrought by the Internet — particularly the seismic changes in marketing — there are times when even the best of us could use a little boost of inspiration. Today’s marketing technologist interview was just that boost of inspiration for me because it features a 113-year old company — Thomas Publishing Company — which has adapted …

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Got marketing technologists? 1,000-fold growth

February 7, 2011 / Marketing Management / By Scott Brinker / 6 Comments

This is both an anniversary post and a state-of-the-market update. Three years ago, I launched this blog to focus on marketing technology — and perhaps more importantly — the new professionals emerging at that intersection, marketing technologists. At the time, I did a quick Google search for a couple of phrases: “chief marketing technologist” and “director of marketing technology” to see how popular those job titles were. Both terms predated my blog, although neither was …

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Bring your A-game to marketing technology (interview)

February 2, 2011 / Interviews / By Scott Brinker / Leave a Comment

Earlier this week, I shared a presentation by marketing technologist Cleve Gibbon on building a marketing technology platform for engaging global brands. Today, I’m pleased to share with you our own interview with him. Cleve is the Chief Technology Officer of Cognifide, a European digital technology agency that has built sites — or, as Cleve would insist, marketing technology platforms — for clients such as Skype and Virgin Media. He’s a brilliant technologist with a …

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Thinking of marketing technology as a platform

January 30, 2011 / Marketing Software / By Scott Brinker / 1 Comment

Later this week, I’ll be publishing a marketing technologist interview with Cleve Gibbon, the CTO of Cognifide. As a sneak preview for that, I’d like to share with you Cleve’s presentation from last week at the Adobe Partner Community Day in Barcelona. Cleve’s presentation — building a marketing technology platform for engaging global brands — offers some excellent insights into a “platform” view of marketing technology, especially around going from content management to customer experience …

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The Mother of All Post-Click Marketing Diagrams

January 28, 2011 / Marketing Tactics / By Scott Brinker / 3 Comments

For my latest column on Search Engine Land, I sketched out a post-click marketing heuristic to help visualize the different factors at work in conversion optimization. Or, as I call it more informally, The Mother of All Post-Click Marketing Diagrams (click to enlarge): To read the article that explains this diagram, click over to Search Engine Land. P.S. If you’re a professional designer and my PowerPoint-based illustration makes you cringe, I’d be thrilled to have …

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To marketing, then IT, and back again (interview)

January 26, 2011 / Interviews / By Scott Brinker / 2 Comments

For this week’s marketing technologist interview, we move in-house to talk with someone who’s balanced the relationship between marketing and IT on the front-line. In fact, he’s worked for marketing, then IT, and then marketing again — all with the same mission. I’m thrilled to have Eric Long, an experienced online marketer, information architect, and web strategist share his perspective with us. Eric is the Senior Manager of E-Business for the Decor Global Business Unit …

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A marketing technologist’s Swiss Army knife

January 25, 2011 / Marketing Software / By Scott Brinker / 4 Comments

If I had a litmus test for marketing technologists, it would be this: do you use Firebug? Firebug — in case you don’t know — is an add-on for the Firefox web browser that gives you a wealth of tools for peeking at, poking into, and debugging HTML, CSS, Javascript, and the underlying network activity going on in your web browser. If you’re a web developer, this is almost certainly already in your toolbox. But …

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The “rocket scientists” of marketing (interview)

January 19, 2011 / Interviews / By Scott Brinker / Leave a Comment

If you want an example of how a marketing technologist can rise to an executive leadership role in a billion dollar company, you need not look any further than today’s guest for our marketing technologist interview series: Brad Terrell. Brad is VP & General Manager of the Digital Media business unit at Netezza — a firm recently acquired by IBM for $1.7 billion. He is responsible for maximizing the value Netezza delivers to digital media …

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Box.net CEO: The new reality of IT lives outside IT

January 16, 2011 / Marketing Management / By Scott Brinker / 2 Comments

Aaron Levie, the CEO of co-founder of Box.net — and a self-acknowledged purveyor of “shadow IT” — wrote a terrific post for the Fortune Tech blog on CNNMoney.com today: To save the IT department, blow up the IT department. On a daily basis, a select group of individuals are making technology decisions on behalf of their entire organization. They’re implementing services to solve real business problems, sometimes under the guidance of their IT department, but …

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