Okay, so you’ve purchased your marketing automation system and have just finished going through the implementation process. Now you’re ready to start using your shiny new tool to automate your marketing tasks, send email blasts, measure your campaign effectiveness, and more. But first, let’s go through a few marketing automation “dos” and “don’ts” — you’ll want to be careful not to jump in too quickly and risk hurting any of your campaigns.

Before we get to all the great things you can and should be doing with your marketing automation system, let’s get a few of the “don’ts” out of the way:

• Don’t be fooled into thinking that the more you pay, the better the system will be. While many of the more expensive systems probably do come with greater functionality, there’s certainly a platform within your price range with the capabilities that you need.

• Don’t think that marketing automation will create content for you. Having these expectations will only lead to a rough reality check if you don’t have the preparation in place to support a marketing automation system from a content perspective.

• Don’t see the robust email capabilities as an excuse to spam prospects or clients with unwanted emails. Most marketing automation platforms have checks in place to ensure that you’re CAN-SPAM compliant.

• Don’t set and forget. You’ll get the most out of your efforts by measuring, revisiting, and readjusting your segmentations, automation rules, and other actions you’ve set up within the software. This applies to social too — there’s nothing worse than scheduling tweets ahead of time that end up being irrelevant by the time they get published.

• Don’t execute your automation rules in real-time unless they are time sensitive autoresponders. If you have more than a page of rules that are set to run in real-time, you risk slowing down your entire system. A general rule of thumb is: if you don’t need the rule to run constantly, pause it or archive it.

Luckily, there are a lot more “dos” on the list than “do not’s.” Wondering what you should be doing with your new system? See our list below:

• Do set realistic goals for yourself, like improving lead quality and increasing revenue. You should always have goals set for your campaigns before planning and launching them.

• Do target and segment your prospects and leads. Take advantage of the rich data provided by marketing automation to create more focused campaigns.

• Do encourage your sales and marketing teams to work together. Fortunately, your sales reps should be receiving higher quality leads from marketing, causing the marketing team to feel more appreciated and encouraging collaboration between the two teams.

• Do keep your database clean. Over time, databases can get unruly without any management. Clean out your database a few times every year to prevent email bounces from prospects who have changed companies or updated their email addresses.

• Do use marketing automation for engagement and re-engagement campaigns. Use the lead nurturing capabilities to place leads on drip campaigns, and set up re-engagement campaigns to revive interest in your brand in leads who have gone inactive.

• Do follow up promptly. The advantage of using a marketing automation system is that you get up-to-date notifications any time a lead does something on your site. So even if they initially told you they wouldn’t be interested in your product for another six months, you can contact them with relevant information if you see them poking around the pricing section before that six months is up.

• Do use lead scoring and grading. Take advantage of the fact that you can not only see how much activity a prospect has engaged in on your site, but also how good of a fit they are for your company and product.

Keep these items in mind as you prepare to begin using your new marketing automation system. Knowing what you should and shouldn’t do as you set off to create your first campaign can help you get the results you want without all the trial and error. Are there any other “dos” and “don’ts” that you think should be added to the list? Let us know in the comments!

Pardot’s marketing team recently took a trip to Stone Summit, the largest rock climbing gym in the Southeast. As we stared up at the 60 foot wall with an understandable amount of trepidation, we realized that there were a lot of lessons marketers can learn from rock climbing. The experience reminded us of how it feels to be stepping into a brand new marketing campaign — daunting, worrisome, yet exciting.

So what did we learn, you may ask? Good question.

Lesson 1: Campaigns take planning. So does climbing a rock wall.

The first steps onto a rock wall are a lot like the first steps planning a campaign. Where do you start? Where do you want to go? What is your goal? What are you going to do if you get stuck? How does this campaign (or climb) fit into your overall goal or strategy? If you don’t ask yourself these questions and plan out your “moves” ahead of time, your campaigns will lack both preparation and direction.

Lesson 2: Know how to adapt when plans go awry.

It’s very likely that you’ll run into a tough spot when you’re climbing a route. Just like when you encounter problems in your professional life, you’ll find yourself faced with several options. You can either berate yourself for the missteps that got you into trouble in the first place, consider giving up and making an excuse (faking an injury will probably work better for climbing than work), or you can adapt. I’d recommend the latter. If you run into an obstacle in the middle of a marketing campaign, there’s almost always a different approach you could be taking. Perhaps you should be using a different promotional channel, targeting different sites with your ads, or optimizing your images for search. Just take a deep breath, look at all of your options, and try again.

Lesson 3: Sometimes, you just have to go for it.

At some point, you’re going to be staring at a climbing hold that’s way too far away to reach. It’s times like these that you’re faced with a startling realization: you just have to go for it. Similarly, marketers should be willing to take risks when necessary. If you hit a roadblock and it feels like you’ve explored every outlet available to you, it might be time to get creative. Try using new copy on your landing pages, changing up your site layout, or revamping your email marketing campaign. Sometimes, big changes can have big payoffs.

Lesson 4: Test. Evaluate. Progress.

Climbers are all about progression. When they finish a route, they think about what they did to reach the top and how they can do it better in the future. Then they apply that knowledge to a harder, more advanced route. Marketing works the same way. During (and after) your campaigns, run reports and evaluate your results. Are you getting the returns that you wanted? Are you reaching the right prospects? Based on these reports, think about how you can improve your campaign so that you can take it one step further.

Now, when you finish your marketing campaigns, you probably shouldn’t be lying at the base of a rock wall in an exhausted, chalk-covered heap. But, you should be feeling just as elated! Just remember to keep these lessons in mind when you decide to tackle your next marketing campaign.

Do you have any other lessons to add to the list? Let us know in the comments!

In a post last Monday, we discussed some important marketing lessons that we can learn from the first three books in the Harry Potter series. Now, we’re ready with more insight from books four through seven!

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry returns for his fourth year to find that Hogwarts will be hosting the Triwizard Tournament. It’s all fun and games until Harry is thrown right into the middle of the competition, making him the fourth competitor in a tournament meant for three. As the youngest competitor, Harry has to work hard to define strategies that work for him while predicting the strengths of his older opponents.

Marketing Lesson: Know your market. This means knowing your competitors, and identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the other companies in your space. It’s always important to know what you’re going to be up against, and how your company fits into the industry. Just as important is to know what your own strengths are and how you can use them. In the wise words of Professor Moody, “Play to your strengths.”

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

In the fifth book in the series, Harry learns about the underground resistance against Voldemort and his followers, and the Ministry bans the use of wands in the Defense Against the Dark Arts class. When the students realize how unprepared they’ll be in a real duel, they decide to found Dumbledore’s Army, a group devoted to learning how to use real spells in defensive situations.

Marketing Lesson: Know how to use the tools at your disposal. The same motives that spurred the formation of Dumbledore’s Army should propel your marketing. Having all the practical knowledge in the world is useless if you don’t know how to apply it. Marketing tools like email marketing systems, social media, and marketing automation are there to help you, so make sure you actually learn how to use them. That means going beyond just “reading the instructions” to actually using the tools and understanding how they work.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

With Dumbledore’s tutelage, Harry discovers the existence of horcruxes, which could represent a way to finally destroy Voldemort. The hunt for horcruxes leads Harry through distant memories of Voldemort’s past, which give him valuable clues that could help him defeat his nemesis.

Marketing Lesson: Find your competitor’s weakness(es). This comes with knowing your market and understanding your competition. Just as Harry identifies that Voldemort’s weakness is his dependence on horcruxes, you should be able to identify what your competitors aren’t doing well, and how you can do it better. Chances are, their weakness represents an opportunity for you to step in and satisfy customer or prospect needs that aren’t being met.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Harry decides to forego his final year at Hogwarts to continue the hunt for horcruxes. His quest to destroy Voldemort also leads him to the deathly hallows. Talk about an added complication. Now, Harry has to decide which will give him a better chance of beating Voldemort — horcruxes, or the glory and power of the deathly hallows?

Marketing Lesson: Prioritize. Know which tasks are most important to your marketing efforts and put those first. Don’t get sidetracked by flashy alternatives (like the deathly hallows) that will derail you from what actually works. For example, although it may be a lot of fun to write about social media, content that is focused on your audience’s needs may have to take precedence. As a marketer, prioritizing doesn’t mean you should be afraid to take risks; it just means that you shouldn’t forget about those trusty, reliable horcruxes.

What other parallels can you draw between Harry Potter and marketing? Let us know in the comments below!

See last week’s post, 7 Marketing Lessons Learned from Harry Potter (Part 1) here.

When Harry Potter was accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, kids across the globe rejoiced. Perhaps there was still hope! Hope that someday, they would find their acceptance letter curled into a carton of eggs, or tied to the leg of an owl swooping overhead. While unfortunately we’re all forced to accept that we won’t be boarding the Hogwarts Express come September 1st, the magic lives on every time we crack open one of J.K Rowling’s books.

There may not be any more Harry Potter books or movies on the way (sigh), but that doesn’t mean that we’ve exhausted all of the lessons that can be learned from the books. Check out the list below to see what valuable lessons marketers can learn from the first three books in the Harry Potter series.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

When Harry Potter is thrown from the world of muggles into one full of chocolate covered frogs, friendly half giants, and transfiguration lessons, he doesn’t know what to expect. Although Hogwarts may seem like it’s full of magic, there’s something sinister going on under the surface that will lead 11-year-old Harry to confront the darkest wizard of all time.

Marketing Lesson: Don’t underestimate the little guy, because even the smallest heroes can triumph against all odds. Small businesses may feel just as daunted as Harry did when faced with their bigger competitors. But if Harry has taught us one thing, it’s that determination and resourcefulness can go a long way. Small businesses are lucky in that they’re often more agile, personable, and innovative than their larger competitors. So if you’re a small business, don’t count yourself out!

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry’s second year is fraught with danger from the start, from flying car crashes to disastrous quidditch matches. Not only that, but the legendary Chamber of Secrets has been opened by the heir of Slytherin. “The boy who lived” may be completely innocent, but the lingering suspicion that he’s the one responsible could tarnish his reputation for good.

Marketing Lesson: Harry’s struggle to prove his innocence in the second book shows the importance of your brand’s reputation. If consumers have a negative perception of your brand, it doesn’t always matter how great your product is. Brand identity depends on how your consumers perceive your brand, not how you see it. Make sure you are monitoring social media conversations happening around your company, and always adhere to your brand standards and company voice.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

In the third installment in the series, Harry learns a little bit more about his parents and his past. Really, the third book is all about relationships — the relationship between Harry, his parents, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Voldemort, and Dumbledore. Oh, and not to mention the dementors.

Marketing Lesson: The people on your team are your most important asset. Although James Potter, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and Sirius Black functioned well together as a team, they all had very different strengths and weaknesses. Your marketing team works the same way. While some people might be great at creating original marketing content, others’ strengths may lie in lead generation or SEO. Place each of your team members in the role where they can make the biggest impact.

Stay tuned for “7 Marketing Lessons Learned from Harry Potter (Part 2)” next Monday to see what insights we can gain from books four through seven!

If you’re like most b2b marketers, it can be hard to stay on top of industry news, helpful tips, and relevant blog posts. That’s why we’ve started to rely so heavily on tools like google reader and Twitter to parse through the crazy amounts of content out there and give us up-to-date feeds of what’s most relevant to us.

To help users find that relevant content, Twitter gives them the ability to create and subscribe to lists, or curated groups of Twitter users grouped together by interest or industry. Marketers don’t always have the time to go out and find all of the industry influencers that they should be following. Subscribing to a list does a lot of that work for you. To cut down on even more time, we’ve tracked down the top 5 Twitter lists for marketers. Check them out below, and click the “subscribe” button if you’re interested in subscribing:

#1. Marketing, curated by Pete Cashmore of Mashable

This one is pretty easy. If you’re a marketer, you’ll probably want to subscribe to Mashable’s “Marketing” list. Tweets come from 51 marketers and marketing experts, including marketers and advertisers at Ad Age and Ogilvy, industry analysts, and popular editorial teams.

#2. CMO, curated by Miles Jennings

If you’re looking for industry leaders, check out this list made up of 254 marketing executives and Chief Marketing Officers. Tweets cover industry trends, marketing tips and stats, and news about social media and technology. Subscribe to get updates from some of the best and brightest in the field, and take notes on what kind of content they’re putting out or promoting to their followers.

#3. Most Influential in Tech, curated by Robert Scoble

If you’re in the marketing industry, you need to have an understanding of the technology around you. With so much of marketing now depending on software and online tools, it’s important to stay up to date on the tech industry. The “Most Influential in Tech” list curates tweets from 275 of the most influential people in the technology industry, like Chris Anderson of TED and various CEOs, founders, and presidents of powerful tech companies.

#4. Social Media, curated by Pete Cashmore of Mashable

With all of the social media hype, it’s helpful to have a list of industry influencers and thought leaders to help you keep up. Social Media, a public list by Mashable, has 102 members ranging from social media managers and experts to writers, editors, and social media management companies. You’ll get helpful blog posts, quick tips, and fun social media-related content when you subscribe.

#5. Creatives to Watch, curated by Behance

Twitter isn’t all about industry news, blog posts, and trends. It’s also a creative outlet. If you’d like to see how 137 of the top creative minds on Twitter are promoting their content, subscribe to Behance’s “Creatives to Watch” list. Members include designers, founders of creative agencies, and innovative marketers.

Of course, there are tons of Twitter lists out there that you can subscribe to based on your interests, motivations, and specific industry. But these are great starting points for marketers looking for more niche, up-to-date content. Are there any other lists that you’d recommend?

Answers to these questions vary depending on intent and context, but there are general guidelines that you can follow to make sure you are optimizing your forms. Sticking to a set of best practices can help you create and tweak new and existing forms so that they drive more conversions.

Use the list below as a standard for creating your forms. For each step, check out the example provided underneath to see how other companies are using these guidelines for their own forms.

Step 1. Pay attention to design. The look and feel of your design affects the perception of your credibility, intent, and value. Use a color palette that compliments the rest of your site, and make sure your form contrasts enough that it stands out.

Twitter’s sign up form has been integrated into the overall site design using complimentary colors and positioning.

Step 2. Clearly state the value. What will a prospect get for filling out your form? How will they benefit? If they’re signing up for a newsletter, how frequently should they expect to receive emails? If the purpose of the form isn’t obvious, prospects will most likely ignore it.

Emma, an email marketing service, explains the benefits of their service in text above and beside their form, in addition to providing an informative video.

Step 3. Choose the right location. Position your form above the fold of the page so that prospects don’t have to spend time looking for it. With every obstacle you place between a prospect and a form, you lose valuable lead generation opportunities.

Hootsuite, a social media management service, has positioned their form at the top of their homepage, far above the fold.

Step 4. Keep your forms short. Avoid excessive scrolling by only using the minimum number of fields necessary. Prospects are wary of giving away too much of their personal information. If you’d like to collect more than just a name, email address, and position title (the standard 3), use progressive profiling for your forms. This allows you to collect additional information by presenting different form fields every time that a prospect returns to fill out another form.

Mailchimp only uses three fields on their sign-up form: email, username, and password.

Step 5. Place your privacy policy prominently on the page. If you’re collecting personal information, prospects will feel encouraged knowing that their information is in good hands.

Twilio, a cloud communications service, places their privacy policy right underneath the “Get Started” button on their form.

Step 6. Include a strong call to action (CTA). The CTA should mirror what a prospect read in the form introduction or the ad that drove them to the page. Make it stand out from the page using a button, a link, or a different color. The CTA should remind prospects why they are filling out the form in the first place, and what they stand to gain.

Internet video studio Epipheo Studios includes a “Free Consultation” call to action and a large “Send” button to drive conversion.

Have you seen any other great forms on other sites? Do you have any recommendations of your own? Let us know!

The decision to adopt a marketing automation solution isn’t easy. But if you’ve been wrestling with the idea, you’ve probably decided that something about your current approach isn’t cutting it. Take a look at the following list of red flags and their marketing automation solutions to see if any of them sound familiar. It may turn out that marketing automation is just the solution you’ve been looking for.

1. Sales and Marketing are at each other’s throats.

When the sales team gets frustrated with the quality of leads passed along to them by marketing, tensions can rise. This can lead to a downward spiral in which the marketing team starts to feel underappreciated and bitter toward sales for choosing prospecting over the leads they’ve been generating.

Marketing Automation Solution: Scoring and grading can help the marketing team identify leads that are a better fit for their company, so the sales team doesn’t have to waste time reaching out to unqualified leads. Integration with a CRM platform also makes prospect data available to sales reps at all times, giving them relevant, timely, and actionable information.

2. You’re not reaching the right prospects.

If there’s one thing that marketers have learned, it’s that the quality of leads or prospects is more important than the quantity. If you feel like you’re reaching tons of possible leads, but you’re not getting the response or the quality that you would like, then you’re probably using a one-size-fits-all approach that’s alienating your prospects. Limited targeting and a lack of personalization can make prospects feel like your message isn’t applicable to them.

Marketing Automation Solution: It might be time to consider a solution that can help you target and segment your prospects. With segmentation, you can reach specific prospects with a more relevant message, which means that your message is less likely to be ignored.

3. Some of your best leads are going to your competitors.

Many companies let leads fall off their radar if they’re not ready to buy. The problem with this is that those leads could be sales-ready within a few months, even if they’ve given you every indication that they’re not ready to make a purchase. If you don’t have a system in place to nurture your leads, then you may end up losing them to your competitors when they reenter the market.

Marketing Automation Solution: Drip nurturing allows you to educate your leads by dripping content to them over time. This means that you can keep in touch with them up until they’re ready to buy, keeping your company top-of-mind and leaving less room for the competition.

4. You spend too much time building marketing campaigns from the ground up.

Does it ever feel like you spend all of your time building out the same email campaigns, landing pages, and lists – over and over again? If this is the case, then you’re probably sacrificing valuable time that could be spent developing and executing new strategic initiatives.

Marketing Automation Solution: Marketing automation solutions are designed to simplify your marketing tasks. Email template wizards, form builders, and landing page builders can help you save time by establishing a reusable workflow. Your marketing communications can also be triggered by prospect actions, so they’ll be carried out automatically rather than requiring a manual deployment.

If you’ve adopted a marketing automation solution recently, what were some of the tell-tale signs that pushed you to make that decision? We’d love to hear!

Last December, Twitter added the option to embed tweets, making it easier for content marketers to add more social and interactive content to their sites. Embedded tweets allow you to post tweets to your website so that you can share your activity with a larger audience.

The standout benefit of this new feature is that it’s interactive. Anyone on your site or blog can retweet, reply, or favorite the tweet to join the conversation. They can also choose to follow the tweet author or view their profile by clicking on the author’s name. For tweets that contain a picture or a YouTube video, the media content will also be displayed on your website. If you’ve never seen an embedded tweet before, it looks like this:

Did you score a Pardot tee at the @techcrunch #tcatl event last night? Send us a pic when you’re sporting it! #swagsightings

— Pardot (@Pardot) July 10, 2012

The interactive functionality and the graphical presentation make embedded tweets highly engaging compared to plain text content. Images and videos can draw the eyes of your readers and pull them further into your content.

That being said, what are some good ways to incorporate them into your marketing efforts? Get started by taking a look at the list below for a few fun ideas. Then, check out Twitter’s detailed instructions to help walk you through embedding your first tweets.

1. Try out some fun, creative posts that bring in a new perspective on a topic using celebrity, political, or news tweets. If you missed it, Pardot’s Kanye on Content post added a unique twist to content marketing using embedded tweets.

Tell everyone at the label only use Gothic or Helvetic fonts for email blast unless I otherwise approve

— Kanye West (@kanyewest) August 4, 2010

2. Add customer testimonials or positive tweets to your site. Embedded tweets from satisfied clients or customers can really show off your business while reflecting positively on your brand.

Can’t get enough of the @Pardot support! My question about styling one of their forms got answered within 10 minutes.

— Bill Bowman (@Bill_Bowman) July 5, 2012

3. Use embedded tweets in your survey, contest, webinar, or event invitations. If you have something that you’re promoting, give visitors the opportunity to share it while they’re looking at your blog post or website.

Friday the 13th seems like a good day to launch a contest, right? Win a Kindle Fire from ‘Profs: facebook.com/marketingprofs…

— Ann Handley (@MarketingProfs) July 13, 2012

4. Include tweets from industry influencers, experts, and professionals in your blog posts to support your points in a visually appealing way.

Blog posts on Mondays are viewed the most; Posting more than once a week is key! #InboundSci

— Demand Gen Report (@DG_Report) July 12, 2012

5. Expand on a twitter conversation in a blog post. How often have you seen a really great conversation take place on twitter before it gets lost in the flurry of never-ending tweets? If you think a conversation has more potential, embed it on your blog. Not only can visitors reply and continue the conversation, but you can pull in people who missed the conversation the first time around.

@peterdbaron We couldn’t agree more! Sometimes great audio will even salvage a poor shoot. Thanks for the response Peter!

— WISTIA (@wistia) July 5, 2012

6. Recap events or webinars through embedded tweets. Compile highlights of the twitter conversations taking place during the event and present them in a “recap blog post” for those who may have missed out. This can be fun for attendees who want to be featured in your recap.

ona webinar with @ReadyTalk and @Pardot.Learning about everything webinar!#RTWebinar — Tracy Williams (@B2BDenver) July 12, 2012

The possibilities for embedded tweets extend much farther than the six ideas above. Have you been using embedded tweets? What creative ideas can you add to the list? Let us know in the comments below!

You’re probably familiar with the classic white paper: an informational, narrative document at least six pages in length that discusses a business topic or problem. But even though there’s a standard for white papers, they don’t always have to be so cut and dry.

In this day and age, it’s becoming more common for people to look for easily digestible, scannable material. Marketers are constantly having to adapt their content to this changing consumer, and this can be a challenge when it comes to long-form content like white papers. So how can we continue to engage this new type of consumer without sacrificing the content or length of our white papers?

Have no fear! We’ve compiled a list of tips and tricks that can help you add some color to your white papers–without forfeiting the quality of your content. Check them out below.

1. Add numbers. Numbered lists are perfect for scanning and skimming. Try turning your topic into a “Top 5 Email Marketing Secrets ” or “8 Deadly Sins of Landing Pages.” Then, expound on each topic in the list over the course of a few paragraphs or pages. The numbered structure makes it easier for readers to pick and choose which items are the most relevant to them.

2. Include sidebars. These are separate pieces of text that are set off from the main content, often in tinted or colored boxes. They can contain background information, definitions, or short case studies to reinforce the main content.

3. Pull out important quotes. If there’s a quote you really want people to see, pull it from the main text and place it in a separate, graphic box. If your readers are scanning through your document, the pull-quote will stand out and catch their eye.

4. Incorporate callouts and statistics. If you have any “Did you know?” callouts or data that you want to emphasize, set those apart from your main text, too. Statistics and small snippets of information will jump out from the rest of the content.

5. Use Illustrations. With the increase in the popularity of visual content, it’s important to include graphs and illustrations in your white papers. Interspersing visuals with text can make a white paper more user-friendly and ultimately more engaging. Graphs of statistics can also provide great support for your points.

6. Add quick summaries. Do you remember how your high school textbooks had summaries at the end of every chapter? A short paragraph summed up thirty pages of material, making it easy to review whole chapters in just a few minutes. Your white papers can have similar summaries at the end of every section so that they’re easier to scan.

7. Create a glossary. If your white paper includes a lot of terms that your readers might not be familiar with, gather them together in a glossary at the end of your document. This will act as a useful reference for your audience. You can even make it fun by adding a few pictures.

These are just a few ideas to help you add a little bit of color to your white papers. Are there any others that you’ve used to spice things up?

When you hear the phrase “marketing automation,” it’s tempting to imagine a team of robots controlling your marketing efforts via computers and remote servers. Marketing automation is often construed as being mechanical, cold and impersonal — in fact, the very term “marketing automation” can seem ambiguous and, frankly, a little intimidating.

Let’s get a better picture of what marketing automation really means by sorting through some common myths and facts:

Myth #1: Only big businesses can use marketing automation.

Fact: The fastest growing segment of marketing automation users is actually small businesses. Many solutions, including Pardot, are specifically catered to the SMB market, meaning that the product has been created with that market in mind.

Myth #2: Marketing automation is impersonal.

Fact: Just because it automates a lot of your marketing processes, that doesn’t mean it’s impersonal. In fact, marketing automation gives you the opportunity to add more personal touches to your campaigns, like personalized emails that come directly from specific members of your sales team, even if they’re automatically generated. Plus, by automating some basic tasks, you free up your time to spend more time interacting with your clients and prospects!

Myth #3: Marketing automation is difficult to implement.

Fact: Many companies, us included, have HUGE teams dedicated solely to implementation. Keep in mind that you’re not expected to have to use a marketing automation system on your own right out of the box. Taking advantage of free training sessions, webinars, help centers, and your assigned implementation specialist. Depending on the size of your company and your marketing and sales teams, you can launch your first campaign within a few weeks.

Myth #4: Marketing automation is expensive.

Fact: Marketing automation platforms often come with tiered pricing, which means that you can choose the package that best fits your budget and needs. Some companies even offer month-to-month pricing so that you aren’t locked into an annual contract — plus they offer free implementation. Plus, there are vendors out there for all different companies, from small businesses to huge enterprises. Remember, even though you’re paying a fee, marketing automation platforms can increase ROI through higher quality leads and higher conversion rates.

Myth #5: A lot of technical skill is needed to use a marketing automation system.

Fact: While at first marketing automation platforms may seem daunting, they’re made to be used by people with varying degrees of technical skill. For example, many email editors have the option of either choosing a pre-made email template or creating a template from scratch using HTML. Marketing automation softwares are designed to be intuitive and easy-to-use, so that you can operate them in-house without having to hire additional resources to manage them.

Knowing the difference between myth and fact can help take away some of the hesitation when it comes to adopting a marketing automation system. Have you heard of any other myths that need debunking?

Think of your prospects as students. If they’ve just arrived for their first day of school, they’re probably not ready to be tested on advanced material, right? So what are they ready for?

Introducing the guide to “Schooling Your Leads,” an infographic designed by Pardot’s Matt Wesson to help B2B marketers learn how to nurture their leads to a sales-ready state. Prospects are categorized by where they fall in the “education system,” from freshman year to senior year. Each year is accompanied by the content that would be most relevant to that category, like introductory emails for freshmen prospects and video content or infographics for those hard-to-reach sophomores. If you’ve been in a content slump, this guide can help you find relevant content for every stage of the lead nurturing cycle. Check it out below!

Even though thinking about school can bring back memories of bad cafeteria lunches and unfortunate hairstyles, using this analogy can be helpful when it comes to nurturing leads with different needs. And providing leads with the right content at the right time can help to shorten your sales cycle and close more deals!

What content have you found works best for your freshman prospects? What about your sophomores, juniors, and seniors? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Download this infographic.

Embed the “School Your Leads” infographic on your site: copy and paste the code below.

<img src="http://www2.pardot.com/school_your_leads_infographic" width="600">
<p> - School Your Leads - An infographic by the team at <a href="http://www.pardot.com/blog/">Pardot Marketing Automation</a></p>

If you think video isn’t an important tool for marketing, think again. In a recent article on infographics, we discussed how 65% of the population is made up of visual learners. This means that it’s important to present content visually, and whether you’re placing it on your blog or website, distributing it via social media or sending it through email, video is a great way to make your content visual and entertaining.

It’s easy to take the video route when you’re a big company with a multi-million dollar budget, but what about smaller companies, start-ups and b2b companies with limited resources? Let’s take a look at some smaller companies that have recently created some successful — albeit unconventional — video content.

Wistia
Wistia, a video hosting, tracking and managing company, recently announced that they would be releasing their first ever free pricing plan on June 5th, and what better way to announce their new plan than through a funny, original rap video? On the first day that the video was posted to their blog, it spread across several social media platforms, buoyed along by positive feedback from clients and industry experts alike.

Dollar Shave Club
Another example comes from a start-up called the Dollar Shave Club, a company that ships razors to subscribers on a monthly basis for a small fee. In March, they released a video that employed humor and outrageous dialogue to describe their new business platform. It immediately went viral, gaining more than a million views and prompting 5,000 people to subscribe to the Dollar Shave Club within the first 24 hours.

So what can we as marketers learn from this? Can we all expect to create video content that goes viral, starts trending on twitter and results in hundreds of new clients or customers? No, of course not.

Video as a Marketing Tool
What we can take from this is that video is a powerful tool, especially when it comes to marketing. It’s also trackable, so we can get data such as views and shares that can help determine ROI. There are a lot of ways to use video that can attract positive attention. For example, Pardot recently featured a new video on its homepage that illustrates the tense relationship between sales and marketing. Before, this content might have made for a dry read. Now, it’s been turned into an amusing, animated and easy-to-understand video.

This video by Pardot was also incorporated into an email campaign, which is a good example of how video can be integrated into your marketing or marketing automation efforts. The Q4 2011 Video Marketing Survey and Video Trends Report, by WVMC and Flimp Media, found that 52% of senior marketing executives have been using video in their email marketing campaigns. Of these, 88% said that integrating video has had a positive impact on their campaign performance. This statistic shows how video can provide even more data to help determine email marketing effectiveness. Just be careful not to bog down your emails with videos. It’s often more effective to link to a video using a strong call to action, which avoids the complications that can result from embedding.

Webinars are also a great way to bring in video or visual content. Results from Ooyala’s Q1 2012 Global Online Video Index indicate that more than 50% of time spent watching video is spent on long-form content, or video lasting longer than ten minutes. Since webinars generally fall into this category, they could be a great marketing tool for your business. Many marketing automation platforms can connect with different webinar platforms, making it easier to integrate them into your marketing efforts.

If you’re already using video as a part of your marketing strategy, what have you found that works well for you? If you’re not using video, maybe it’s time to get started!