Sales and marketing executives filled the TAG Marketing event at the Centergy Building 3rd Floor Meeting Room in Atlanta last Thursday. The panel I moderated included:
Stacy Williams—visionary founder of the award winning SEO firm, Prominent Placement
Joe Koufman—VP of Business Development and Marketing for Engauge and current president of AIMA (Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association)
Tim Sullivan—co-author of "The Solution Selling Field Book" and Director of Business Development for Sales Performance International (the Solution Selling® company)
The topics were:
- What has changed since 2006?
- What are the predictions for change between now and 2012?
Since 2006:
- Increase focus on tracking and measurement
- Enhance search capabilities—video, news feeds...
- Focus on conversion—not just impression or click thru
- Focus on enhancing user experience (on all devices)
- Social media/marketing is past the experimental phase
- Companies consolidating to single source rather than managing multiple relationships
- Acceleration in the amount of communication and what buyers expect sellers to know
- Sales sells "value" much earlier in the sales process than prior to 2006
- B2B buyers paralyzed by risk—sellers must mitigate that risk (terms, guarantee...)
Predictions for 2012
-
Real-time search (Twitter and other social media) beating out traditional press
- Integration of search with other media (off-line and on-line tied into all marketing)
- The age of mobile devices WILL finally happen
- One device will replace the cell phone, laptop and desktop
- All marketing will become interactive
- The cloud will grow so that access is universal and SaaS solutions will flourish
- B2B marketing will increasingly be directed by sales: the focus will be market coverage
- "Segments of one"—generalized messaging will be dead
- Sales forces will be "knights, not armies": smaller, mobile, agile and ultra-responsive
There were more questions than time and our panelists spent 45 minutes after the session answering individual questions and enjoying the informal time with our guests.
Of the 75 attendees, over 50 dropped their business card into the fishbowl to win: "The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century" by George Friedman—an excellent read.
A special thanks goes to my co-chair, Adam Harrel (http://www.neboweb.com/), for his company's work on the PowerPoint presentation!
Questions? Just post a question on this blog and I will either get back to you or ask one of our panelists to do so.
By Dan McDade
Topics: Marketing Strategy