Marketing Management

Earlier this year, I gave a presentation at Search Insider Summit on the topic of marketing mash-ups. It was a whirlwind tour of how marketing started from a single discipline and, over the years, fragmented into a dizzying array of specialties and subspecialties. It also offers a few ideas for how we can turn this fragmented landscape into a source of new cross-speciality creativity — and maybe, just maybe, unify marketing once again. Someone just …

A brief, hand-wavy history of marketing fragmentation Continue Reading »

I’ve shared the laws of technology for marketers. But what about laws of marketing for technologists? The single most insightful marketing book I’ve ever read was published nearly 20 years ago, before the Web was anything more than an academic experiment: The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Marketers of the Internet Generation can be forgiven if they haven’t read it. After all, it doesn’t invent entirely new tactical dynamics …

The Evergreen Laws of Marketing (techs take note!) Continue Reading »

Yesterday, MarketingProfs published a podcast interview between me and Matthew Grant on the topic of Why You Need a Marketing Technologist. We started by talking about what Matt calls the “technologization” of marketing: “So much of the information that marketers have about who their audience is, what that audience is reacting to, is seen through the filter of software. For instance, you look at your analytics to determine what people are doing on your web …

MarketingProfs podcast on the marketing technologist Continue Reading »

Last week, I spoke at Adobe’s Enterprise Partner Community Day in NYC on the Rise of the Marketing Technologist (and What It Means for Agencies). Adobe has now posted the video of that session — click the image below to open a full window and see the video and slides synchronized: The event was a mix of presentations by Adobe representatives on their particular technologies and partner programs and a few presentations by “external” speakers, …

The Book of Marketing Technology on Broadway Continue Reading »

“Marketing must control its own technological destiny.” Not too long ago, that was a radical proposition. (In some IT quarters, it might still be.) But today, the esteemed enterprise analysts at Forrester released two new reports that take that proposition mainstream: Investing In Marketing’s Technology Future and Three Approaches To The Marketing Technology Office. $499 each, but worth it for executive-level discussions. To give you a flavor of the first report, and why it has …

Forrester recommends a Marketing Technology Office Continue Reading »

The good news is that, at last, everyone agrees: Marketing technology is now a major dimension of marketing. The marketing department and the IT department must collaborate. The challenge, however, is that beyond those two principles, there is a stunning diversity of opinions for how marketing technology should be managed and exactly what the new collaboration between marketing and IT should look like. I’ve heard from many different companies that are addressing this in very …

14 marketing technology organizational models Continue Reading »

We were in New York this weekend, and we walked by the Apple Store on 5th Avenue. A large crowd of people had gathered around an impromptu memorial to Steve Jobs — made of post-it notes, messages on MacBook and iPad boxes, printouts of “Think Different” ads, flowers, apples. I found it touching and inspiring: A series of post-it notes spelled out this famous Apple advertisement: Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, …

Photo: make a difference by thinking differently Continue Reading »

Yesterday, I attended Forrester’s inaugural CIO-CMO Forum. Sharyn Leaver, one of the hosts from Forrester, kicked off the event by saying, “This is the first time we’ve brought CIOs and CMOs together in the same room — hope everyone comes out alive.” Nervous laughter. And so began a fascinating day of joint CIO-CMO sessions, with more than its fair share of jokes about IT and marketing stereotypes: marketing is nothing but spin and fluff, and …

Top 10 Memorable Quotes from the CIO-CMO Forum Continue Reading »

This may be inside baseball, but I am mesmerized by the drama playing out at TechCrunch right now — and I can’t help but see a metaphor for the shift of marketing within it. The short version: TechCrunch is world’s most popular tech blog, acquired last year by AOL/Huffington Post, but largely permitted to retain its editorial independence. Founder Michael Arrington, a larger-than-life character on the tech scene, stayed on. However, Mike recently announced he …

Marketing lessons from the CrunchFund controversy Continue Reading »