As another year draws to a close, many of us are looking back at the past 12 months with an eye toward 2012. In the spirit of continual improvement, this is also the time when we begin setting New Year’s Resolutions. As we all know, most of these well-meaning resolutions typically fall by the wayside mid-February. Setting aside the personal, what are your professional resolutions for 2012? I have proposed a few below which we could all benefit from:

1.  Leveraging social media
You recognize the importance of social media and may even have a LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter account. But are you actively mining your social media channels for opportunities and leads? According to a recent study by Pardot Marketing Automation, 52.5 percent of marketers are spending 10 percent of their marketing budgets on social media activities, with nearly as many stating that 10 percent of their leads come from social media channels. Connecting and engaging in the conversation is key in truly maximizing this channel.

2.  Doing the little things

Want to set yourself apart from your peers and impress others? It really is the little things that make a difference here. Do more than is expected of you internally and externally to set a great example. Show up to your meetings on time or even a few minutes early. Send your business partners an email after hours to let them know you are always thinking about their business. Practice the art of listening, both online and offline and practice repeating what you heard.

3.  Employ the KISS method
In an era of information deluge, it is increasingly difficult to follow the maxim, Keep it Simple Stupid (KISS). Do not call meetings unless you have defined an express purpose and outcome. Following the KISS method means streamlining your interactions and ultimately, giving yourself time to focus.

A recent article from BtoB Magazine on Marketing Automation sparked a somewhat interesting debate among members of the Marketing Automation Association LinkedIn Group, and I thought it worth revisiting. The article’s main point was to imply, somewhat strongly, that the marketing automation and business intelligence tools available to today’s BtoB marketers have essentially changed marketing from a right brain to a left brain profession. (Slight detour for those, like me, who sometimes have trouble telling our right brain from our left – right brain dominant individuals tend to be more creative while their left brain dominant counterparts tend toward the analytic.)

It’s true that today’s automation and analytic engines are offering marketers tools and capabilities that we could only wish for a decade or two ago. However, I think it would be a mistake, and would set BtoB marketing back significantly, if these new tools resulted in anything less than a strong and equally deployed mix of right brain and left brain skills.

I would say that most successful marketers realize that, to be effective, marketing requires both creative and analytic thinking. Certainly, killer creative can at times overcome flaws in mix or deployment strategy. And ending up on the right side of a killer opt-in list built from relentless analysis of personas and prospect actions can make up for a bit of pedestrian creative. But when a strong, relevant creative message is paired with a well thought out campaign strategy built on solid analytic models, true magic can occur.

As point of fact, two of the more successful and creative campaigns I’ve been associated with recently had to do with an Indiana Jones type multimedia campaign and a zombie-based video and trade show support plan. Both leveraged analytic tools to validate results and both required a lot of left brain thinking. But I’d say it was the combination of both the pre and post campaign analysis and strong creative that made the efforts a success.

It is true that today’s comprehensive business intelligence and marketing automation solutions have made delivery against performance metrics a regular part of a marketers success criteria. And this goes well beyond the time-worn ROI numbers we’ve all used for decades.  Today, lifetime value, lead to revenue and pipeline conversion results rule. And marketers are more than ever held accountable for their decisions.

In addition to post-campaign analytics, today’s BtoB marketers can take advantage of a myriad of testing tools that enable A/B and multivariate testing of every conceivable campaign element before hitting a “Go” button. But I still believe that the best marketers are leveraging those tests to find the best of a series of strong creative elements pulled from the deep resources of their right brain.

Hopefully we don’t ever lose that.

Over the weekend, the Arketi team celebrated the holidays together at Ray’s on the River with delicious food, drinks and company. Celebrating their first winter holiday with Arketi were several new team members along with Arketi veterans, family and friends.

As tradition, Arketians brought a wrapped gift and participated in “bad santa”  by opening and/or stealing a present.

After all the stealing, we then confess to which funny, useful, or pampering present we brought.

Check out more holiday photos on Arketi’s Picasa album. From our team to yours, have a wonderful holiday season and an exciting new year!

We’ve come to that time of year again when budgeting is in full season, and it made me think about how organizations approach budgeting differently, particularly as it relates to marketing.
I was talking with a CMO recently, and he said, “I have the ‘CFO cut’ built into my budget, so we should be good.” You see, this CMO has figured out that come the mid-Q3 timeframe, the CFO is going to get nervous and ask for money back from the budget. So, he has learned to put that money in ahead of time, so he could ‘give it back.’ Sounds like a game, doesn’t it?

Oftentimes, we are asked by our clients to think outside the budget, to plan as if there was no budget in place. Rather, they want us to build a plan that will execute at a level that ensures the goal is reached. Having gone through this exercise a number of times, the outcomes tend to fall into one of two scenarios:

1.  The budget is truly fixed, and the thinking and strategy to determine what was really necessary to make the objective happen was a theoretical exercise and a waste of time, or
2. The exercise was strategic and sincere. The CEO takes the feedback and goes to the board for approval to expand the marketing budget and take the market by force.

It might not surprise you to know that scenario #1 plays out much more often than scenario #2… maybe this is why so many marketers look upon the budgeting process with disdain, thinking it is “fixed” or a game in of itself.

Maybe it is time that marketers challenged the process and asked the strategic question, “What are we truly trying to achieve this year, and will we invest appropriately to make it happen?” For example, if we want to double sales, but will only increase the marketing budget by 5%, is that truly realistic?

Perhaps marketers should worry less about following the budgeting process and more about leading the strategic discussion.  Maybe then, the budgeting process will become strategic.

This post was also featured on TAG Think.