For progressive and tech savvy business-to-business companies, traditional marketing techniques like entire departments dedicated to cold calling potential clients have largely been retired to the trash folder. Instead, these companies are rapidly embracing technologies and practices aimed at increasing productivity, using social media more effectively, and providing engaging and informative content to potential clients. For a deeper look at these trends shaping B2B marketing in 2011, read on.
Quantifying Value Creation
If you’re looking to make your case to another business, come with lots of data, says Keith Pigues, co-author of Winning With Customers: A Playbook for B2B. You’ll need to quantify your value to customers in terms of dollars and cents, something known as “customer value creation.”
"Many organizations are finding that some of the more traditional customer satisfaction or customer loyalty measurement systems like ‘net promoter score’ are falling short when trying to provide a real financial measure to companies to help them understand exactly, 'how much more money am I making doing business with your company verses Company B or C?,'" says Pigues.
To accomplish this, companies are looking to third parties for help. Among them is Chicago-based Valkre, a technology provider that specializes in helping companies customize and match sales solutions to specific customers, implementing marketing strategies that increase a company's online visibility, and creating daily management plans that use mainstream technology.
Valkre founder Jerry Alderman agrees that the next evolution in B2B marketing involves businesses attempting to understand how the services they're offering truly impact the bottom line of their customers. Valkre has created a new metric, called the differential value proportion or "DVP", which measures the amount of increased profit that a customer can bring in by doing business with one company versus another. Unlike net promoter score, the DVP percentage metric was designed for use specifically within the B2B industry.
Targeting Online Identities
Whittling down to the individual buyer will increasingly be the objective in online B2B marketing, even in terms of broad awareness campaigns, says Steven Woods, the Toronto-based CTO of Eloqua. Instead of generalized marketing initiatives, companies are beginning to analyze the online behavior -- also known as digital body language -- of individuals involved in the B2B industry in an effort to pinpoint the specific buyer whose needs best fit the services of the seller.
Through the collection and analysis of data, companies are discovering ways to link varied online "handles" across social networks to a single individual they wish to target for marketing purposes. "The vanguard will see a lot of people in 2011 figure out the identity management challenge and be able to understand ‘you’ across those identities and understand how your activity on Facebook, on Twitter, on LinkedIn, and the various social properties indicates your buying intentions," says Woods.
The goal is to cater marketing content to customers depending on where they are in the buying process. To accomplish this, Tableau Software, a Seattle-based seller of B2B software, uses a method of "scoring" visitors that come to their website. The more that users visit, the more their scores increase, allowing the algorithm to filter them into the programs within the site that speak to their interests. Thus, Tableau targets customers based on their online behavior rather than the demographics provided by their firm or industry.
"The trend of 2011 is that marketers are as interested in delivering relevant content to relevant people, as they are to stopping the delivery of irrelevant content to irrelevant people," says Elisa Fink, Tableau's vice president of marketing. "We don't want to be spammers. Every engagement with a company is really an engagement with a person."
Getting Creative with Content
In terms of the content being delivered, B2B companies are encouraging members of their technology departments to build their personal brand and further the recognition of their company by becoming "expert" bloggers and content creators.
"The winning marketing skill set that is going to be very much recognized in 2011 is not going to be the creative copywriting, artistic skill setm," says Woods. "It's the person who understands numbers, analytics, data, workflow, the operational skill set."
This can be accomplished via the company website, Twitter stream, LinkedIn discussion group, and even the employee’s personal blog.
Woods explains that part of this trend is a move in favor of less polished content and faster production times. In the past, all marketing materials were placed under intense scrutiny before anything was put online to represent the company. Now, personal engagement is en vogue, whereby the members of a company with active knowledge about products can engage in two-way conversations with clientele on the fly.
"[The content] might even have spelling mistakes in it. If it's a video, it might just be a very quick, ‘hey, here is how I tackle this problem, here is how I view the latest merger in the industry, or view this latest technological development,’" says Woods.
Some B2B institutions are also beginning to explore new approaches to their chain of command within marketing initiatives. In larger B2B companies, the IT department typically reports to the operations department because that's where the most money has traditionally been invested. According to Alderman, that is now changing. He points to a major player in the industry taking the approach of having their IT department report to their marketing department. By doing this, information regarding a business' technological holdings and services can be more accurately and efficiently marketed to potential clients.
As the Web 2.0 advances into a new decade, B2B marketing strategies will also continue to develop. Indeed, there are an increasing number of digital platforms, like social media, for marketers to explore. In 2011, the winners will be the ones that are best able to target their efforts to their customers’ online habits and interests, and provide true value – and be able to prove it – to users.
D.C. Universe Online MMO Log Part One: Making A Name For Myself — And Another
As a boy my paper route money went to comic books, stories of people coming to terms with their strange powers and their place in the world. With D.C. Universe Online, I now take that journey for myself.
Kotaku's MMO reviews are a multi-part process. Rather than deliver day one reviews based on beta gameplay, we play the game for four weeks before issuing our final verdict. Once a week we deliver a log detailing when and how we played the game. We believe this gives readers a frame of reference for the final review. Since MMO titles support many different types of play, readers can compare our experiences to theirs to determine what the review means to them.
I am a complete novice at massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Fahey is normally our man on the subject. But as D.C. Universe Online is a rarity - the console-based MMO - many will experience the genre for the first time with it on the PlayStation 3. I will be one of them, and that journey will be a part of Kotaku's review of the game.
Having never done an MMO log before, I'm going to begin with a summary of my first experiences in D.C. Universe Online, figuring that a lot of what I consider profound early on might be made moot by later experience. In subsequent weeks I'll go through my experiences in a more journaled format.
What I Played
D.C. Universe Online may intrigue some because of how, as a complex MMO, it will be handled using the tools of a traditional console. For me, anything is going to be new, but everything here was undertaken with a standard PS3 DualShock controller - no USB keyboard or other peripherals.
Powers and talents are therefore mapped to the face and R1/L1 buttons with the L2/R2 buttons as modifiers. L2 activates one of four powers out of the left side of your "tray" in the heads up display; R2 equips items such as health out of the right four slots of the tray. The D-pad is used for chat, gestures and canned interaction (lacking a chatpad this week, I kept quiet, or bowed and waved to folks).
I focused my first two days of gameplay (Monday and Tuesday) on indvidual experiences, developing additional powers and understanding what I could do, what I couldn't do, and what was inadvisible in this world. More complex, cooperative engagements such as group raids would come later, I decided, after I'd built a methodology for the combat system and a set of attributes and powers supporting it.
As of the time of writing, I've finished more than 30 missions, solo completing two quests (if the tutorial counts, three) plus several side missions that were built to introduce players to Metropolis. I'm a level 10 metahuman, with a smirk and a compound bow. I run like lightning and burn like fire. Name's Ballisto.
How It Went
My original name was Lawn Dart. About six levels in, I learned one of the hard truths about MMO character creation - pick a name you can live with. I slapped "Lawn Dart" on my Flash/Green Arrow hybrid ("not Lawn Dart Lad?" asked McWhertor) expecting to take an ironic tour of duty for truth, justice, and cookouts. Instead I took a real pride in what my hero was doing, and elected to just start all over, redoing the first quest in the process. You can't rename a character, but there seemed to be no restriction on creating more than one.
The quick rundown: as Ballisto, I'm a hero (players may choose to be villains). My means of travel is lightning speed (flight and acrobatics are the others.) Fire is my power type (the others are ice, gadgets, mental, sorcery and nature) and I'm a metahuman, which means someone whose power comes from a mutation or alteration. Other types are tech (getting their powers from gadgets) or magic (mystical beings).
The tutorial stage, which many of you have played thanks to the game's pre-release beta, introduces you to the combat system of an action MMO. I don't think it can be failed, but I didn't try to, either. Superman and I cleaned out a space station crawling with Brainiac's mechanized trashcans, and then it was on to Earth.
It wasn't apparent to me in what order I should be doing things, so I just jumped right into action after being introduced to the police station, a base of operations where everyone trades in loot, picks up missions and shows off for the other players. For herose, the first quest - Gorilla Grodd's assault on the Metropolis boardwalk and downtown financial sector - comprises a meaty 10-plus missions, taking me to level 6 by its conclusion.
D.C. Universe Online points out that its progression is built on the completion of missions, not leveling, meant to reduce grind. I still found that the missions in the Grodd quest and the Queen Bee quest following it had their own types of grind - go here, kill this many bad guys, smash this many assets.
At peak hours in the early missions, you would be competing with many other players trying to bag the same 10 Gorilla Lieutenants or Royal Bees or whatever. There's usually a race to the unique character type you need to kill and then a fury of button-mashing, hoping to bring him down. I wasn't sure how someone got credit for a kill, whether it was landing the last punch or what.Monday evening I hit some pretty nasty lag and decided to come back later. Tuesday at the same time the issues were gone.
At the end of the Grodd quest I met the Flash, a treasured boyhood hero. All of the D.C. Universe characters I've encountered are well voiced, but Flash especially so. I left that mission looking forward to more. In the Queen Bee quest's final interior stage I learned that I could tackle the objectives with a measure of stealth (or speed) rather than overcoming every guard and then activating the objective behind him.
Not so for the Queen herself, who was unusually tough on me, but I was fighting at least one level underweight. So there were a lot of "knock outs" (as opposed to deaths) which, in a boss's case, starts the battle over rather than saving your progress on your enemies as in other missions.
By the end of the second quest I hadn't pursued the easy sightseeing quests offered in the police station, which give load you up with XP toward one or two skill and power points, plus gear. I mopped those missions after beating Zazzala. It could be my lack of exposure to the genre but I didn't feel a strong sense of "You should do this now," in the game. Experienced players probably pick up the cues more, so the hands-off approach is likely a virtue.
One thing I didn't appreciate is the game's radar, which would occasionally fail to materialize waypoints in the explorations. This led to some pretty frustrating wanderings around the Watchtower, especially. The Grodd campaign likewise didn't do a good job of pointing me over to the pier, which is where I was supposed to smash some gorilla teleporters. I took care of that long after I finished the overal quest, just for laughs.
Other pastimes included two speedster races outside the police station (I assume flight/acrobatic races are available for those types), a trip to the Vault (sort of booby-prize warehouse you can visit once a day for free random gear) and a visit to the PvP Legends arena to fight as Robin against Harley Quinn. I got my ass kicked badly there.
Ballisto/Owen Meets She-Ra, Gives Her (Him?) The Creeps
benchcraft company portland or
Repatriation of ailing Filipino woman sought - Arab <b>News</b>
Arab News contacted on Saturday the embassy official concerned with the case but he did not answer the call. “We specifically requested that aside from providing her medical care, the embassy should also arrange her immediate ...
Fashion <b>News</b> - Week in Review: Kate Moss Gets Engaged, Gisele <b>...</b>
Here's all the fashion news that's fit to print! Enjoy!
Bad <b>News</b>: New Book Probes Role of Press in Financial Crisis
Given that some economists still debate the root causes of the Great Depression, little wonder that a multitude of competing stories still vies for affirmation as explanation for the financial crisis of 2008.
bench craft company reviews
For progressive and tech savvy business-to-business companies, traditional marketing techniques like entire departments dedicated to cold calling potential clients have largely been retired to the trash folder. Instead, these companies are rapidly embracing technologies and practices aimed at increasing productivity, using social media more effectively, and providing engaging and informative content to potential clients. For a deeper look at these trends shaping B2B marketing in 2011, read on.
Quantifying Value Creation
If you’re looking to make your case to another business, come with lots of data, says Keith Pigues, co-author of Winning With Customers: A Playbook for B2B. You’ll need to quantify your value to customers in terms of dollars and cents, something known as “customer value creation.”
"Many organizations are finding that some of the more traditional customer satisfaction or customer loyalty measurement systems like ‘net promoter score’ are falling short when trying to provide a real financial measure to companies to help them understand exactly, 'how much more money am I making doing business with your company verses Company B or C?,'" says Pigues.
To accomplish this, companies are looking to third parties for help. Among them is Chicago-based Valkre, a technology provider that specializes in helping companies customize and match sales solutions to specific customers, implementing marketing strategies that increase a company's online visibility, and creating daily management plans that use mainstream technology.
Valkre founder Jerry Alderman agrees that the next evolution in B2B marketing involves businesses attempting to understand how the services they're offering truly impact the bottom line of their customers. Valkre has created a new metric, called the differential value proportion or "DVP", which measures the amount of increased profit that a customer can bring in by doing business with one company versus another. Unlike net promoter score, the DVP percentage metric was designed for use specifically within the B2B industry.
Targeting Online Identities
Whittling down to the individual buyer will increasingly be the objective in online B2B marketing, even in terms of broad awareness campaigns, says Steven Woods, the Toronto-based CTO of Eloqua. Instead of generalized marketing initiatives, companies are beginning to analyze the online behavior -- also known as digital body language -- of individuals involved in the B2B industry in an effort to pinpoint the specific buyer whose needs best fit the services of the seller.
Through the collection and analysis of data, companies are discovering ways to link varied online "handles" across social networks to a single individual they wish to target for marketing purposes. "The vanguard will see a lot of people in 2011 figure out the identity management challenge and be able to understand ‘you’ across those identities and understand how your activity on Facebook, on Twitter, on LinkedIn, and the various social properties indicates your buying intentions," says Woods.
The goal is to cater marketing content to customers depending on where they are in the buying process. To accomplish this, Tableau Software, a Seattle-based seller of B2B software, uses a method of "scoring" visitors that come to their website. The more that users visit, the more their scores increase, allowing the algorithm to filter them into the programs within the site that speak to their interests. Thus, Tableau targets customers based on their online behavior rather than the demographics provided by their firm or industry.
"The trend of 2011 is that marketers are as interested in delivering relevant content to relevant people, as they are to stopping the delivery of irrelevant content to irrelevant people," says Elisa Fink, Tableau's vice president of marketing. "We don't want to be spammers. Every engagement with a company is really an engagement with a person."
Getting Creative with Content
In terms of the content being delivered, B2B companies are encouraging members of their technology departments to build their personal brand and further the recognition of their company by becoming "expert" bloggers and content creators.
"The winning marketing skill set that is going to be very much recognized in 2011 is not going to be the creative copywriting, artistic skill setm," says Woods. "It's the person who understands numbers, analytics, data, workflow, the operational skill set."
This can be accomplished via the company website, Twitter stream, LinkedIn discussion group, and even the employee’s personal blog.
Woods explains that part of this trend is a move in favor of less polished content and faster production times. In the past, all marketing materials were placed under intense scrutiny before anything was put online to represent the company. Now, personal engagement is en vogue, whereby the members of a company with active knowledge about products can engage in two-way conversations with clientele on the fly.
"[The content] might even have spelling mistakes in it. If it's a video, it might just be a very quick, ‘hey, here is how I tackle this problem, here is how I view the latest merger in the industry, or view this latest technological development,’" says Woods.
Some B2B institutions are also beginning to explore new approaches to their chain of command within marketing initiatives. In larger B2B companies, the IT department typically reports to the operations department because that's where the most money has traditionally been invested. According to Alderman, that is now changing. He points to a major player in the industry taking the approach of having their IT department report to their marketing department. By doing this, information regarding a business' technological holdings and services can be more accurately and efficiently marketed to potential clients.
As the Web 2.0 advances into a new decade, B2B marketing strategies will also continue to develop. Indeed, there are an increasing number of digital platforms, like social media, for marketers to explore. In 2011, the winners will be the ones that are best able to target their efforts to their customers’ online habits and interests, and provide true value – and be able to prove it – to users.
D.C. Universe Online MMO Log Part One: Making A Name For Myself — And Another
As a boy my paper route money went to comic books, stories of people coming to terms with their strange powers and their place in the world. With D.C. Universe Online, I now take that journey for myself.
Kotaku's MMO reviews are a multi-part process. Rather than deliver day one reviews based on beta gameplay, we play the game for four weeks before issuing our final verdict. Once a week we deliver a log detailing when and how we played the game. We believe this gives readers a frame of reference for the final review. Since MMO titles support many different types of play, readers can compare our experiences to theirs to determine what the review means to them.
I am a complete novice at massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Fahey is normally our man on the subject. But as D.C. Universe Online is a rarity - the console-based MMO - many will experience the genre for the first time with it on the PlayStation 3. I will be one of them, and that journey will be a part of Kotaku's review of the game.
Having never done an MMO log before, I'm going to begin with a summary of my first experiences in D.C. Universe Online, figuring that a lot of what I consider profound early on might be made moot by later experience. In subsequent weeks I'll go through my experiences in a more journaled format.
What I Played
D.C. Universe Online may intrigue some because of how, as a complex MMO, it will be handled using the tools of a traditional console. For me, anything is going to be new, but everything here was undertaken with a standard PS3 DualShock controller - no USB keyboard or other peripherals.
Powers and talents are therefore mapped to the face and R1/L1 buttons with the L2/R2 buttons as modifiers. L2 activates one of four powers out of the left side of your "tray" in the heads up display; R2 equips items such as health out of the right four slots of the tray. The D-pad is used for chat, gestures and canned interaction (lacking a chatpad this week, I kept quiet, or bowed and waved to folks).
I focused my first two days of gameplay (Monday and Tuesday) on indvidual experiences, developing additional powers and understanding what I could do, what I couldn't do, and what was inadvisible in this world. More complex, cooperative engagements such as group raids would come later, I decided, after I'd built a methodology for the combat system and a set of attributes and powers supporting it.
As of the time of writing, I've finished more than 30 missions, solo completing two quests (if the tutorial counts, three) plus several side missions that were built to introduce players to Metropolis. I'm a level 10 metahuman, with a smirk and a compound bow. I run like lightning and burn like fire. Name's Ballisto.
How It Went
My original name was Lawn Dart. About six levels in, I learned one of the hard truths about MMO character creation - pick a name you can live with. I slapped "Lawn Dart" on my Flash/Green Arrow hybrid ("not Lawn Dart Lad?" asked McWhertor) expecting to take an ironic tour of duty for truth, justice, and cookouts. Instead I took a real pride in what my hero was doing, and elected to just start all over, redoing the first quest in the process. You can't rename a character, but there seemed to be no restriction on creating more than one.
The quick rundown: as Ballisto, I'm a hero (players may choose to be villains). My means of travel is lightning speed (flight and acrobatics are the others.) Fire is my power type (the others are ice, gadgets, mental, sorcery and nature) and I'm a metahuman, which means someone whose power comes from a mutation or alteration. Other types are tech (getting their powers from gadgets) or magic (mystical beings).
The tutorial stage, which many of you have played thanks to the game's pre-release beta, introduces you to the combat system of an action MMO. I don't think it can be failed, but I didn't try to, either. Superman and I cleaned out a space station crawling with Brainiac's mechanized trashcans, and then it was on to Earth.
It wasn't apparent to me in what order I should be doing things, so I just jumped right into action after being introduced to the police station, a base of operations where everyone trades in loot, picks up missions and shows off for the other players. For herose, the first quest - Gorilla Grodd's assault on the Metropolis boardwalk and downtown financial sector - comprises a meaty 10-plus missions, taking me to level 6 by its conclusion.
D.C. Universe Online points out that its progression is built on the completion of missions, not leveling, meant to reduce grind. I still found that the missions in the Grodd quest and the Queen Bee quest following it had their own types of grind - go here, kill this many bad guys, smash this many assets.
At peak hours in the early missions, you would be competing with many other players trying to bag the same 10 Gorilla Lieutenants or Royal Bees or whatever. There's usually a race to the unique character type you need to kill and then a fury of button-mashing, hoping to bring him down. I wasn't sure how someone got credit for a kill, whether it was landing the last punch or what.Monday evening I hit some pretty nasty lag and decided to come back later. Tuesday at the same time the issues were gone.
At the end of the Grodd quest I met the Flash, a treasured boyhood hero. All of the D.C. Universe characters I've encountered are well voiced, but Flash especially so. I left that mission looking forward to more. In the Queen Bee quest's final interior stage I learned that I could tackle the objectives with a measure of stealth (or speed) rather than overcoming every guard and then activating the objective behind him.
Not so for the Queen herself, who was unusually tough on me, but I was fighting at least one level underweight. So there were a lot of "knock outs" (as opposed to deaths) which, in a boss's case, starts the battle over rather than saving your progress on your enemies as in other missions.
By the end of the second quest I hadn't pursued the easy sightseeing quests offered in the police station, which give load you up with XP toward one or two skill and power points, plus gear. I mopped those missions after beating Zazzala. It could be my lack of exposure to the genre but I didn't feel a strong sense of "You should do this now," in the game. Experienced players probably pick up the cues more, so the hands-off approach is likely a virtue.
One thing I didn't appreciate is the game's radar, which would occasionally fail to materialize waypoints in the explorations. This led to some pretty frustrating wanderings around the Watchtower, especially. The Grodd campaign likewise didn't do a good job of pointing me over to the pier, which is where I was supposed to smash some gorilla teleporters. I took care of that long after I finished the overal quest, just for laughs.
Other pastimes included two speedster races outside the police station (I assume flight/acrobatic races are available for those types), a trip to the Vault (sort of booby-prize warehouse you can visit once a day for free random gear) and a visit to the PvP Legends arena to fight as Robin against Harley Quinn. I got my ass kicked badly there.
Ballisto/Owen Meets She-Ra, Gives Her (Him?) The Creeps
benchcraft company portland or
Repatriation of ailing Filipino woman sought - Arab <b>News</b>
Arab News contacted on Saturday the embassy official concerned with the case but he did not answer the call. “We specifically requested that aside from providing her medical care, the embassy should also arrange her immediate ...
Fashion <b>News</b> - Week in Review: Kate Moss Gets Engaged, Gisele <b>...</b>
Here's all the fashion news that's fit to print! Enjoy!
Bad <b>News</b>: New Book Probes Role of Press in Financial Crisis
Given that some economists still debate the root causes of the Great Depression, little wonder that a multitude of competing stories still vies for affirmation as explanation for the financial crisis of 2008.
bench craft company reviews
[reefeed]
benchcraft company portland or
benchcraft company portland or
Repatriation of ailing Filipino woman sought - Arab <b>News</b>
Arab News contacted on Saturday the embassy official concerned with the case but he did not answer the call. “We specifically requested that aside from providing her medical care, the embassy should also arrange her immediate ...
Fashion <b>News</b> - Week in Review: Kate Moss Gets Engaged, Gisele <b>...</b>
Here's all the fashion news that's fit to print! Enjoy!
Bad <b>News</b>: New Book Probes Role of Press in Financial Crisis
Given that some economists still debate the root causes of the Great Depression, little wonder that a multitude of competing stories still vies for affirmation as explanation for the financial crisis of 2008.
benchcraft company portland or
For progressive and tech savvy business-to-business companies, traditional marketing techniques like entire departments dedicated to cold calling potential clients have largely been retired to the trash folder. Instead, these companies are rapidly embracing technologies and practices aimed at increasing productivity, using social media more effectively, and providing engaging and informative content to potential clients. For a deeper look at these trends shaping B2B marketing in 2011, read on.
Quantifying Value Creation
If you’re looking to make your case to another business, come with lots of data, says Keith Pigues, co-author of Winning With Customers: A Playbook for B2B. You’ll need to quantify your value to customers in terms of dollars and cents, something known as “customer value creation.”
"Many organizations are finding that some of the more traditional customer satisfaction or customer loyalty measurement systems like ‘net promoter score’ are falling short when trying to provide a real financial measure to companies to help them understand exactly, 'how much more money am I making doing business with your company verses Company B or C?,'" says Pigues.
To accomplish this, companies are looking to third parties for help. Among them is Chicago-based Valkre, a technology provider that specializes in helping companies customize and match sales solutions to specific customers, implementing marketing strategies that increase a company's online visibility, and creating daily management plans that use mainstream technology.
Valkre founder Jerry Alderman agrees that the next evolution in B2B marketing involves businesses attempting to understand how the services they're offering truly impact the bottom line of their customers. Valkre has created a new metric, called the differential value proportion or "DVP", which measures the amount of increased profit that a customer can bring in by doing business with one company versus another. Unlike net promoter score, the DVP percentage metric was designed for use specifically within the B2B industry.
Targeting Online Identities
Whittling down to the individual buyer will increasingly be the objective in online B2B marketing, even in terms of broad awareness campaigns, says Steven Woods, the Toronto-based CTO of Eloqua. Instead of generalized marketing initiatives, companies are beginning to analyze the online behavior -- also known as digital body language -- of individuals involved in the B2B industry in an effort to pinpoint the specific buyer whose needs best fit the services of the seller.
Through the collection and analysis of data, companies are discovering ways to link varied online "handles" across social networks to a single individual they wish to target for marketing purposes. "The vanguard will see a lot of people in 2011 figure out the identity management challenge and be able to understand ‘you’ across those identities and understand how your activity on Facebook, on Twitter, on LinkedIn, and the various social properties indicates your buying intentions," says Woods.
The goal is to cater marketing content to customers depending on where they are in the buying process. To accomplish this, Tableau Software, a Seattle-based seller of B2B software, uses a method of "scoring" visitors that come to their website. The more that users visit, the more their scores increase, allowing the algorithm to filter them into the programs within the site that speak to their interests. Thus, Tableau targets customers based on their online behavior rather than the demographics provided by their firm or industry.
"The trend of 2011 is that marketers are as interested in delivering relevant content to relevant people, as they are to stopping the delivery of irrelevant content to irrelevant people," says Elisa Fink, Tableau's vice president of marketing. "We don't want to be spammers. Every engagement with a company is really an engagement with a person."
Getting Creative with Content
In terms of the content being delivered, B2B companies are encouraging members of their technology departments to build their personal brand and further the recognition of their company by becoming "expert" bloggers and content creators.
"The winning marketing skill set that is going to be very much recognized in 2011 is not going to be the creative copywriting, artistic skill setm," says Woods. "It's the person who understands numbers, analytics, data, workflow, the operational skill set."
This can be accomplished via the company website, Twitter stream, LinkedIn discussion group, and even the employee’s personal blog.
Woods explains that part of this trend is a move in favor of less polished content and faster production times. In the past, all marketing materials were placed under intense scrutiny before anything was put online to represent the company. Now, personal engagement is en vogue, whereby the members of a company with active knowledge about products can engage in two-way conversations with clientele on the fly.
"[The content] might even have spelling mistakes in it. If it's a video, it might just be a very quick, ‘hey, here is how I tackle this problem, here is how I view the latest merger in the industry, or view this latest technological development,’" says Woods.
Some B2B institutions are also beginning to explore new approaches to their chain of command within marketing initiatives. In larger B2B companies, the IT department typically reports to the operations department because that's where the most money has traditionally been invested. According to Alderman, that is now changing. He points to a major player in the industry taking the approach of having their IT department report to their marketing department. By doing this, information regarding a business' technological holdings and services can be more accurately and efficiently marketed to potential clients.
As the Web 2.0 advances into a new decade, B2B marketing strategies will also continue to develop. Indeed, there are an increasing number of digital platforms, like social media, for marketers to explore. In 2011, the winners will be the ones that are best able to target their efforts to their customers’ online habits and interests, and provide true value – and be able to prove it – to users.
D.C. Universe Online MMO Log Part One: Making A Name For Myself — And Another
As a boy my paper route money went to comic books, stories of people coming to terms with their strange powers and their place in the world. With D.C. Universe Online, I now take that journey for myself.
Kotaku's MMO reviews are a multi-part process. Rather than deliver day one reviews based on beta gameplay, we play the game for four weeks before issuing our final verdict. Once a week we deliver a log detailing when and how we played the game. We believe this gives readers a frame of reference for the final review. Since MMO titles support many different types of play, readers can compare our experiences to theirs to determine what the review means to them.
I am a complete novice at massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Fahey is normally our man on the subject. But as D.C. Universe Online is a rarity - the console-based MMO - many will experience the genre for the first time with it on the PlayStation 3. I will be one of them, and that journey will be a part of Kotaku's review of the game.
Having never done an MMO log before, I'm going to begin with a summary of my first experiences in D.C. Universe Online, figuring that a lot of what I consider profound early on might be made moot by later experience. In subsequent weeks I'll go through my experiences in a more journaled format.
What I Played
D.C. Universe Online may intrigue some because of how, as a complex MMO, it will be handled using the tools of a traditional console. For me, anything is going to be new, but everything here was undertaken with a standard PS3 DualShock controller - no USB keyboard or other peripherals.
Powers and talents are therefore mapped to the face and R1/L1 buttons with the L2/R2 buttons as modifiers. L2 activates one of four powers out of the left side of your "tray" in the heads up display; R2 equips items such as health out of the right four slots of the tray. The D-pad is used for chat, gestures and canned interaction (lacking a chatpad this week, I kept quiet, or bowed and waved to folks).
I focused my first two days of gameplay (Monday and Tuesday) on indvidual experiences, developing additional powers and understanding what I could do, what I couldn't do, and what was inadvisible in this world. More complex, cooperative engagements such as group raids would come later, I decided, after I'd built a methodology for the combat system and a set of attributes and powers supporting it.
As of the time of writing, I've finished more than 30 missions, solo completing two quests (if the tutorial counts, three) plus several side missions that were built to introduce players to Metropolis. I'm a level 10 metahuman, with a smirk and a compound bow. I run like lightning and burn like fire. Name's Ballisto.
How It Went
My original name was Lawn Dart. About six levels in, I learned one of the hard truths about MMO character creation - pick a name you can live with. I slapped "Lawn Dart" on my Flash/Green Arrow hybrid ("not Lawn Dart Lad?" asked McWhertor) expecting to take an ironic tour of duty for truth, justice, and cookouts. Instead I took a real pride in what my hero was doing, and elected to just start all over, redoing the first quest in the process. You can't rename a character, but there seemed to be no restriction on creating more than one.
The quick rundown: as Ballisto, I'm a hero (players may choose to be villains). My means of travel is lightning speed (flight and acrobatics are the others.) Fire is my power type (the others are ice, gadgets, mental, sorcery and nature) and I'm a metahuman, which means someone whose power comes from a mutation or alteration. Other types are tech (getting their powers from gadgets) or magic (mystical beings).
The tutorial stage, which many of you have played thanks to the game's pre-release beta, introduces you to the combat system of an action MMO. I don't think it can be failed, but I didn't try to, either. Superman and I cleaned out a space station crawling with Brainiac's mechanized trashcans, and then it was on to Earth.
It wasn't apparent to me in what order I should be doing things, so I just jumped right into action after being introduced to the police station, a base of operations where everyone trades in loot, picks up missions and shows off for the other players. For herose, the first quest - Gorilla Grodd's assault on the Metropolis boardwalk and downtown financial sector - comprises a meaty 10-plus missions, taking me to level 6 by its conclusion.
D.C. Universe Online points out that its progression is built on the completion of missions, not leveling, meant to reduce grind. I still found that the missions in the Grodd quest and the Queen Bee quest following it had their own types of grind - go here, kill this many bad guys, smash this many assets.
At peak hours in the early missions, you would be competing with many other players trying to bag the same 10 Gorilla Lieutenants or Royal Bees or whatever. There's usually a race to the unique character type you need to kill and then a fury of button-mashing, hoping to bring him down. I wasn't sure how someone got credit for a kill, whether it was landing the last punch or what.Monday evening I hit some pretty nasty lag and decided to come back later. Tuesday at the same time the issues were gone.
At the end of the Grodd quest I met the Flash, a treasured boyhood hero. All of the D.C. Universe characters I've encountered are well voiced, but Flash especially so. I left that mission looking forward to more. In the Queen Bee quest's final interior stage I learned that I could tackle the objectives with a measure of stealth (or speed) rather than overcoming every guard and then activating the objective behind him.
Not so for the Queen herself, who was unusually tough on me, but I was fighting at least one level underweight. So there were a lot of "knock outs" (as opposed to deaths) which, in a boss's case, starts the battle over rather than saving your progress on your enemies as in other missions.
By the end of the second quest I hadn't pursued the easy sightseeing quests offered in the police station, which give load you up with XP toward one or two skill and power points, plus gear. I mopped those missions after beating Zazzala. It could be my lack of exposure to the genre but I didn't feel a strong sense of "You should do this now," in the game. Experienced players probably pick up the cues more, so the hands-off approach is likely a virtue.
One thing I didn't appreciate is the game's radar, which would occasionally fail to materialize waypoints in the explorations. This led to some pretty frustrating wanderings around the Watchtower, especially. The Grodd campaign likewise didn't do a good job of pointing me over to the pier, which is where I was supposed to smash some gorilla teleporters. I took care of that long after I finished the overal quest, just for laughs.
Other pastimes included two speedster races outside the police station (I assume flight/acrobatic races are available for those types), a trip to the Vault (sort of booby-prize warehouse you can visit once a day for free random gear) and a visit to the PvP Legends arena to fight as Robin against Harley Quinn. I got my ass kicked badly there.
Ballisto/Owen Meets She-Ra, Gives Her (Him?) The Creeps
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Arab News contacted on Saturday the embassy official concerned with the case but he did not answer the call. “We specifically requested that aside from providing her medical care, the embassy should also arrange her immediate ...
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Given that some economists still debate the root causes of the Great Depression, little wonder that a multitude of competing stories still vies for affirmation as explanation for the financial crisis of 2008.
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Repatriation of ailing Filipino woman sought - Arab <b>News</b>
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Given that some economists still debate the root causes of the Great Depression, little wonder that a multitude of competing stories still vies for affirmation as explanation for the financial crisis of 2008.
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Repatriation of ailing Filipino woman sought - Arab <b>News</b>
Arab News contacted on Saturday the embassy official concerned with the case but he did not answer the call. “We specifically requested that aside from providing her medical care, the embassy should also arrange her immediate ...
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Given that some economists still debate the root causes of the Great Depression, little wonder that a multitude of competing stories still vies for affirmation as explanation for the financial crisis of 2008.
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Repatriation of ailing Filipino woman sought - Arab <b>News</b>
Arab News contacted on Saturday the embassy official concerned with the case but he did not answer the call. “We specifically requested that aside from providing her medical care, the embassy should also arrange her immediate ...
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Here's all the fashion news that's fit to print! Enjoy!
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Given that some economists still debate the root causes of the Great Depression, little wonder that a multitude of competing stories still vies for affirmation as explanation for the financial crisis of 2008.
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I had an interesting conversation with my boss today about people that make a living online. He's semi-old school, so he doesn't really understand (or believe) that so many people these days provide for their families from website revenue and such. As I rattled on and tried to explain to him how every day people are accomplishing this, he obviously didn't understand like I wanted him to, and after 15 minutes of Internet Marketing babble, he shocked me when he asked me if I could name 10 ways people make money online.
Sure, no problem, boss! So here is what I came up with:
1. First choice, obviously, was blogging. Of course, I had to explain the ways you can make money with a blog (paid reviews, selling ads, text link sales, etc...) I think I drove the point home, and it made more sense when I explained the concept to him. The key to making money with your blog is to stick with it no matter what. Add content, grow it, and start raking in the cash.
2. I had to mention Ebay. Ebay was the starting point some 7 years ago when I started to technically "make money online". I even tried to sell paper plates once...it was an addiction. Seriously though, the average American household has so much crap stored away, you'd be surprised at what you can dig out and sell for a few bucks. It all adds up!
3. Drop-shipping. This one wasn't hard to explain, and it relates to #2. Basically, a company that offers a drop-shipping program will allow you to sell their products at whatever price you want to sell them at (over their price) and put the profit in your pocket - and they'll also ship the product from their warehouse to the customers home, so you never physically touch any product. This was really popular a few years back, but due to extreme saturation of the market, it's died down some.
4. Sell your skills. Nothing is more in demand online, than talent. Can you write, design, code, or translate? There are literally thousands of people out there that need your help, and usually don't know where to go and find it. Here's the cool part - they'll pay you handsomely for you services! To start finding gigs in your specialty area, head over to the Digital Point forums - plenty of waiting customers! (Logos sell really, really well!)
5. Can you make stuff that sells? If you specialize in making robots out of toothpicks and forks, then why the hell aren't you selling them online through your own website? This tip is kind of obvious (after-all, it IS 2007), but if you have a unique product or service, then pay the $500 (more or less)to get a custom website, and start taking orders! Again, this is a real no-brainer, but sometimes people need reminding.
6. PPC campaigns. This one is one of my personal favorites that I've been testing lately. PPC (pay per click) are ads that you buy on search engines (Google Adwords) to promote a product or service - usually through an affiliate. Each time someone clicks on your ad and makes a purchase, you get a commission. This method can be tricky and potentially costly at first, but the key to success is test, test, and more tests. Get creative with your keywords and ads - make them stand out. Tweak your landing pages until your conversions pick up. Usually, you'll find success after a lot of trial and error. Just watch your spending at first, because it's very easy to lose money if you slack in the research department!
7. Own a popular website or blog? Sell advertising! Although this may seem obvious, there are still a surprising amount of sites that don't actively sell their available ad spots. Make sure you have a link or page that clearly describes your rates and available types of ads. I hate nothing more than when I click on someones advertising page, and all it has is a contact form. I'll pass on it nearly every time.
8.Write and sell an e-book! With digital products being one of the hottest selling items on the internet right now, what better time to create you own and start raking in the cash! Do you know how to make a grilled cheese sandwich using nothing but cheese, cardboard, and lighter? Write a book about it! Trust me, no matter what, someone will buy it. 9. Do you take pictures? If so, another hot selling item is your original photography. With a quick Google search, you'll find 20 sites that offer to buy your stock digital photos. Some even pay royalties when users download them. For those of you that have huge photo collections of interesting stuff, you're sitting on a goldmine.
10. Exploit the virtual gold trade in video games (a personal favorite!). There are millions of people who play online games such as World of Warcraft who do nothing but stash the in game currency and sell it in bulk to brokers who resell it to regular players. This is a HUGE market, and although the market is packed, it seems like there is always room for one more 'player'. Check out ige.com to see what I mean. That's it for now, there are many more ways to make money online, but these are some of the easier and more obvious ones. I didn't go into great detail for each method because it would take me 4 days to get it all down. I know that if you're reading this blog, you're search engine savvy enough to find out more information if you need it. Now get out there and start earning some extra money!
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Repatriation of ailing Filipino woman sought - Arab <b>News</b>
Arab News contacted on Saturday the embassy official concerned with the case but he did not answer the call. “We specifically requested that aside from providing her medical care, the embassy should also arrange her immediate ...
Fashion <b>News</b> - Week in Review: Kate Moss Gets Engaged, Gisele <b>...</b>
Here's all the fashion news that's fit to print! Enjoy!
Bad <b>News</b>: New Book Probes Role of Press in Financial Crisis
Given that some economists still debate the root causes of the Great Depression, little wonder that a multitude of competing stories still vies for affirmation as explanation for the financial crisis of 2008.
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Repatriation of ailing Filipino woman sought - Arab <b>News</b>
Arab News contacted on Saturday the embassy official concerned with the case but he did not answer the call. “We specifically requested that aside from providing her medical care, the embassy should also arrange her immediate ...
Fashion <b>News</b> - Week in Review: Kate Moss Gets Engaged, Gisele <b>...</b>
Here's all the fashion news that's fit to print! Enjoy!
Bad <b>News</b>: New Book Probes Role of Press in Financial Crisis
Given that some economists still debate the root causes of the Great Depression, little wonder that a multitude of competing stories still vies for affirmation as explanation for the financial crisis of 2008.
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