Online Advertising and Marketing

May 12, 2009 4:06 PM

PPC, CPM, SEO, SEM, Ad Buy, Advertising and Marketing Filter: My Company is now making a big push into email marketing and lead and customer nurturing. We bought “Eloqua” to do this, and I am charged with the implementation. Since I want to "add the most value" I can, I am looking for resources (especially blogs, but books are good too) that are well respected, and that can help me get up to speed with my understanding of industry parlance, technique, best practices, theory, and execution of online advertising and marketing in all its forms (We are going to be making a push into search engine marketing as well). So far I have read "The Long Tail" and "Digital Body Language" I am also interested in keeping up with industry news and events, as well as new technologies and implementations.
posted by Ezrie to computers & internet (7 comments total)

This is a new area that has a pretty narrow market, so there aren't many other books. Blogs are probably a better resource.

Marketing Sherpa offers a number of reports like email effectiveness benchmarks that are useful, but cost money. They have a blog: http://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/.

Exact target is an Eloqua competitor and they have a number of good blogs on email marketing. A lot of it is all about the company though, but there's good bits if you wade through.

There are a handful of Eloqua consultants out there but your best bet is probably to work closely with your rep and have them walk you through it. It's a pretty complex product than can do a lot if you know how. However it is a bear to learn to use.
posted by GuyZero at 5:29 PM on May 12

Are you doing the implementation or are you sidelined now as a result of the implementation?
posted by parmanparman at 6:53 PM on May 12

Not sure if your company is a b2b company, but Marketo (eloqua competitor) has a great b2b lead generation/nurturing blog here.

I do b2b lead gen for a living and run the SEM and email campaigns at my company but we just don't have much in terms of content at this point to do any real lead nurturing. The key to success with software like Eloqua is targeted content that adds value (not a sales piece).

The best tip I ever read was to "think like a publisher." You need to keep providing valuable, sticky content that keeps the reader coming back for more and more. This locks your brand into their mind as a thought leader, and while they might not be ready to move down the pipeline, you will definitely be in their minds once they are.

The most critical part of proving your value is making sure reporting is setup accurately. Without quality reports, it is difficult to show the impact the software (and the success of your implementation) has had. At the end of the day, you'll need to show how much business you generated based on lead nurturing activities that otherwise would not have come about. This needs to exceed the total resource cost of the project (your costs if this is all you do for the company, the cost of the software, cost of any addons or vendors, content creation, etc.)

Its a lot of numbers to crunch but eloqua should have a lot of good reporting tools to help with a good chunk of that.
posted by Elminster24 at 7:40 PM on May 12

There are a bunch of articles and resources available at Early to Rise that might help you. Not sure though but you should definitely check it out, they talk about this stuff in their newsletter all the time.
posted by gwpcasey at 4:39 AM on May 13

"Are you doing the implementation or are you sidelined now as a result of the implementation?"

Basically sidelined.
posted by Ezrie at 9:46 AM on May 13

Thansk all for the responses. The blog links are especially helpful. Can anyone offer other resources that may be more related to the industry of marketing /advertising as a whole? I read newteevee.com for information on the visual media (TV) industry, and I read micropersuasion.com for information on emerging technology and how it relates to marketing. Can anyone suggest blogs written from similair perspectives that deal with the marketing / advertising industry?

(Sorry if I ramble)
posted by Ezrie at 9:51 AM on May 13

I've always found it helpful to keep an eye on what the seedier side of the industry is doing as well. Wicked Fire can be a good forum for that.
posted by paxton at 11:34 AM on May 13