The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Online video shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon, in fact YouTube gets more than one billion unique visitors each month who watch over four billion hours of video each month.   With those kinds of numbers,

Are you on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter? Do you post articles or links with your comments or insights to share with your friends, business network or colleagues? If so, did you know you are a “Content Curator?”

It’s true. The term “Content Curation” has recently gained popularity in blogging and content marketing communities, and there are several mainstream websites that are receiving millions of visits per month by visitors looking for a single place to get information that’s organized in an easy-to-use format on specific topics. 

The New Year has recently come and gone and we are moving fast into 2013 and trying to put 2012 behind us. If you were like many marketers and business owners, 2012 was full of uncertainty as the economy continued its slow growth rate, the fiscal cliff was looming and we were in an election year. This uncertainty impacted consumer confidence negatively and many businesses held off on capital investments and hiring. What does 2013 hold for us? What can we learn from this to help our sales and marketing strategies?

I woke up this morning, dreading the 525,600 Cyber Monday emails I would have to sift through to get down to real business today. It was worse than just Cyber Monday email—since I was out of town for Thanksgiving, I hadn't touched a computer since Wednesday afternoon... which meant I also had all the pre-Thanksgiving, early bird and Black Friday notices filling up my inbox.

A CMO wanted a PR firm that can get to the point. So they sent out an RFP via Twitter. Asked for responses via Twitter.  

The Center for Sales Strategy's Inbound Marketing Forum was this past week in Atlanta, and I had the honor of being able to attend and to speak at the event.

Things have fundamentally changed in the media industry, and I’m excited to have the privilege on November 8^th to discuss why inbound marketing will be critical to the next evolutionary phase for media companies.

Currently, a majority of the media companies (TV, Radio, Print etc.) are not using inbound marketing (blogging, thought leadership, lead generation, email marketing and social media) as part of their strategy to increase the number of leads their salespeople are getting—or leveraging it as a way to drive a more retainable revenue stream via their service and advertising offerings.  

So you drank the inbound marketing Kool Aid and it’s the sweetest you’ve ever tasted. Your team is churning out blog content, and your landing pages are generating leads at a rate you’ve never seen before. Give yourself a pat on the back—you’ve made it further than many other companies (including your competitors). Now that you’re generating leads like a pro, it’s time to look closely at that often misunderstood, nebulous area known as the middle of the funnel.

All day long, my friends have posted Facebook status updates like this, "Go to Google. Click on Images. Type 'completely wrong' and see what images appear." What shows up is a collection of photos of Mitt Romney.*