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Loren McDonald

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VP, Industry Relations, Silverpop

1025 points

26 years in marketing and consulting. Email marketing consultant, marketing executive and "evangelist" since 2001. Written more than 400 articles and blogs, delivered 150 presentations and more than 70 Webinars on email marketing and social media topics.

WEB: Email Insider

Feb. 6, 2012

Loren McDonald asked a question

Did you Shazam any of the Super Bowl TV commercials?

Digital Marketing

Social Media Marketing

Jan. 18, 2012

Loren McDonald recommends this answer by Carlos Hidalgo

Should salespeople drive marketing, or should marketing drive sales? Who should be at the wheel?

Fred: Great questions and great answer by David Brock. David once said something that I have used repeatedly regarding at what group is driving whom and that is that both marketing and sales need to align and drive around the customer. As he stated this ... more

Dec. 21, 2011

Loren McDonald recommends this answer by Ardath Albee

How frequently should we be "touching" our prospects in our nurturing programs?

Hi Dave,
Great question! And some interesting, albeit confusing answers.
There are a couple of ways to look at frequency of nurturing programs. The first one is the length of the average buy cycle. If it's 3 months, nurturing frequency will be higher. If it's 12 months ... more

Content Marketing

Dec. 20, 2011

Loren McDonald and 12 other people answered this question

What is the best way to become an expert in a given field?

It depends on what you mean by "expert." If you mean true actual domain expertise, then you obviously need to be on the front lines living the area of focus everyday.
If you mean "recognized expert" as in a thought leader - then it takes more ... more

Customer Service

Human Resources

Dec. 20, 2011

Loren McDonald and 8 other people answered this question

When you talk to your customers, what do you typically talk to them about?

For me and my role as an evangelist at a marketing technology company, it can depend on the context of the meeting, who is in the room, their expectations, length as a client, etc. But generally it comes down to talking to them about how ... more

Customer Service

Customer Conversations

Customer Experience Management

Dec. 20, 2011

Loren McDonald and 5 other people answered this question at this roundtable

Email Marketing: The Year in Review and Predictions for 2012 [12/15 @ 11 am]

What are the top 3-5 trends that all email marketers should be aware of going into 2012?

Some of the key trends for 2012 include:
1. Dealing with Inactives: Inactive (however defined) subscribers typically comprise 40-50% of a company’s email database. And after-the-fact reactivation emails typically only reactivate 1-2% of those inactives. In 2012, a growing number of email marketers will wake up ... more

Dec. 3, 2011

Loren McDonald and 6 other people answered this question

In 2011 "social" was the hottest prefix buzzword. Will "social" continue to be the buzzword of 2012?

Definitely agree with you on Social ROI and measuring the effectiveness of social marketing programs. A key driver of that will be the move to social CRM where customer/prospect's social behavior is incorporated into the CRM database along with other behaviors to drive automated marketing ... more

Online Marketing

Dec. 3, 2011

Loren McDonald recommends this answer by Michael Brenner

What did b2b marketers learn in 2011?

1. We learned that social media has exited the peak of hype and entered the "trough" of inflated expectations. Some brands even retreated or kept flat their investment in social efforts as 2 recent studies suggested. I expect 2012 will bring slow and steady progress ... more

Content Marketing

Dec. 2, 2011

Loren McDonald and 4 other people answered this question at this roundtable

Optimizing Content Marketing - What, When, & Where? [12/1 @ 11 am]

Do marketers ever fear content fatigue?

The reality is that most of your customers and prospects don't have the time or inclination to read all of your content, or let alone find it. Life would be bliss if they read every whitepaper, newsletter, blog post, article, case study, tweet, etc we ... more

Dec. 2, 2011

Loren McDonald and 5 other people answered this question

Will Google Chrome eventually surpass Internet Explorer in market share?

I'm not an expert on browsers, but two things in particular suggest to me that Chrome has a great chance to catch up to IE in the next 3-5 years:
1) Google+ adoption
2) Growth of Android devices. more

Information Technology

Dec. 2, 2011

Loren McDonald and 3 other people answered this question at this roundtable

Optimizing Content Marketing - What, When, & Where? [12/1 @ 11 am]

Is it better to use personal or company accounts to distribute marketing content?

Lauren could you provide more detail or an example? The answer is of course it depends, but often both personal and company accounts is the right answer.
A new whitepaper should be blogged about on the corporate blog,Tweeted from corporate Twitter account, emailed via company newsletter, ... more

Nov. 25, 2011

Loren McDonald and 3 other people answered this question

With all the "noise" in the marketplace, what are the best practices for building your Brand?

The keys to building a brand hasn't really changed much in the last 100 years - build a great product and provide a great customer experience - and a great brand will follow.
What has changed in the last decade is how much power consumers have ... more

Nov. 19, 2011

Loren McDonald and 13 other people answered this question

How do you define great marketing content?

Adele, thanks for the kind words and glad you added your thoughts. Ultimately I think a key point you are making is about empathy. The best content marketers are not the MarComm people sitting in their cubes and pounding out the latest whitepaper on their ... more

Content Marketing

Nov. 16, 2011

Loren McDonald and 7 other people answered this question

What are the unwritten rules to a successful webinar?

Carl, I've presented or moderated more than 60 Webinars in the last few years and continue to learn what makes a great Webinar. But a couple of points:
1. The most important part of a Webinar is the title. The title is what attracts people to ... more

Customer Service

Channel Management

Nov. 9, 2011

Loren McDonald and 8 other people answered this question at this roundtable

Successful Tactics in B2B Demand Generation [11/11 @ 11 am]

Why do webinars work so well with today's busy prospects?

Great question Craig. And I too think that John pretty much nailed it.
In the last 4 years I've personally presented/co-presented or moderated 60+ Webinars - and one of the things I've learned is that each Webinar attendee brings a personal agenda to their attendance. Meaning, ... more

Demand Generation

Nov. 8, 2011

Loren McDonald is now following Chad White

Sept. 23, 2011

Loren McDonald and 3 other people answered this question

What are you doing to activate inactive subscribers in your database?

You are absolutely correct Andrew - it starts with defining what an inactive is for your company. My comments and point was focused at a higher level, that once you've defined inactives, the point is not to look backward, but look forward to minimizing inactives ... more

Digital Marketing

Email Marketing

Sept. 23, 2011

Loren McDonald and 4 other people answered this question at this roundtable

How to Measure the ROI of Marketing Automation Software [9/22 @ 11 am]

If marketers tend to not be good at buying tech, should they work with IT to purchase solutions? Or who should they consult with?

Where this is all going is a dedicated Marketing IT person - call them a Chief Marketing Technology Officer - or at most companies probably something like Director of Marketing Technology. A number of companies (including Coca Cola) have this role already.
So marketers will still ... more

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