Marketing Management

It’s a new year — a new decade — ahead. The 10’s will be a spectacular era for those of us at the intersection of marketing and technology. And before the next decade is out, there’s going to be a lot more of us in that nexus. But here on the immediate horizon, there’s the […]

When it comes to innovation and new market opportunity — why some companies harness those forces to catapult to riches and glory, while otherwise good and strong leaders stumble and fall — the smartest guy I’ve ever met is Clay Christensen. The chart above is from an article Clay wrote a year or so ago,

I’ve been thinking about quintessential marketing skills and how they’re evolving. Skills can be very specific, such as “mastery of ExactTarget for newsletter email marketing”. But I’m more interested in broader skills that transcend individual projects and programs. For instance, in marketing, I’ve found that the following skills have perpetual value: empathy with customers, seeing

From a recent interview with Hal Varian, chief economist at Google and professor of information sciences, business, and economics at the University of California at Berkeley: We’re in the middle of a period that I refer to as a period of “combinatorial innovation.” So if you look historically, you’ll find periods in history where there

This was a fascinating week for social media and disruptive innovation in marketing. Take these 4 stories: Yesterday, eMarketer reported that people all over the world are spending more and more leisure time online, on both a daily and weekly basis. A study by TNS Global found that in 2008, US adults spent 30% of

Forget the usual stereotypes of IT and marketing. Start with the assumption that all marketers and all IT people are smart, talented, enthusiastic, and dedicated to the success of the company, above personal preferences or departmental jockeying. They’re each very good at what they do. So why is there such legendary frustration at the intersection

Just read a great article in the MIT Sloan Management Review, The Secrets of Marketing in a Web 2.0 World. The authors interviewed more than 30 executives and managers in both large and small organizations that are at the forefront of experimenting with Web 2.0 tools in marketing and came up with a set of

Let me state right up front: I am an advocate of scientific marketing. Just in case there’s any doubt as you read on. Marketing ideas should be tested and one should apply the scientific method to those tests. Most of marketing is now measurable, directly or indirectly. With digitally produced and distributed marketing — particularly

What is the role of a chief marketing technologist? Short version: a chief marketing technologist (CMT) is the person responsible for leading an organization’s marketing technology. A company may or may not be a “technology” business, but in today’s world it needs to deftly leverage technology in its marketing to: optimize its marketing strategy and

Every profession has its vernacular, the insider lingo that serves as both a shortcut and a sort of secret handshake. Acronyms and abbreviations are often the epitome of such jargon, inscrutable to those outside the club. (“Fix the DNS with the new IP for your SaaS CRM ASAP — think of the SLA!”) But some