A report called The Measure of Marketing was recently written by Quaero Corporation. Marketer’s greatest challenge is measuring effective ROI. They are accountable for every dollar they spend. However, a majority still do not have accurate marketing performance measurements in place. This report, offers some guidance that marketing organizations can use for their own measurement efforts.

How do you effectively measure your marketing efforts?

When expanding your offerings into new markets, there are many things that marketers must take into consideration. But what do you need to consider when you are expanding into a new universe? If you don’t yet know about Second Life, you soon will. Cutting-edge marketers are now beginning to look to Second Life as a new medium in which to engage with their prospects and/or user base. Brands such as Toyota have utilized Second Life to launch a virtual showroom where users can purchase both real-world and “virtual” Scions. And Reuters has even launched a Second Life news bureau. Currently, Business-to-business marketers are primarily using the medium as a means in which to hold events. These events are different than virtual tradeshows which have been around for some time, and if you are considering executing an event utilizing Second Life, there are a few things you need to know. This B-to-B article helps explain these considerations.

Is Second Life part of your 2007 plans? If so, we’d love to hear about it.

In past posts, we have discussed how to write a good white paper.  But, when it comes to actually syndicating the white paper, what are best practices?  This week, MarketingSherpa offers a comprehensive list of dos and don’t for content syndication.  In my opinion, one of the most important best practices for syndication that they provide is to take their white paper content and turn it into other media venues, specifically podcasts.  Our experience has shown that taking your content and syndicating it different media venues will help you attract IT pros in all different stages within their buying cycle.  Do you have any examples that support that?

Last month I participated in a dinner hosted in London by the CMO Council http://www.cmocouncil.org/ attended by Chief Marketing Officers across several industries and respective companies. I happened to be seated next to CMOs for EMEA or England from IT companies like IBM, Motorola, Microsoft, HP, Factiva (to name a few).

Their dinner conversation focused on a major pain point they are all experiencing-namely the trend for their key customer accounts to not rely on single vendors for bundled solutions-but rather to seek out Best of Breed multi-vendor solutions for each component of a total installation.

This creates many challenges for the marketing and sales arm of any IT solution-provider. The CMOs were basicially describing their organization’s challenges to respond to this dymanic by offering highly customized yet opened-ended solutions that work with multi-vendor installations . 

Long gone is the day they can assume they can build enough loyalty from their customers to be dependent on just their brand or solution, as commodization and competitive prices strongly influence the lack of loyalty. 

 Anyone care to offer opinions on this trend or to share Best Practices in how to deal with the reality?