What to expect_in_2013

6 KEY MARKETING
TRENDS FOR 2013
and Tips for Succeeding in the Year of the Customer

Big data moves from the aggregate to the individual
and starts to become actionable for smaller companies. ..........................6
Video: “What to Expect in 2013: Big Data” ........................................................................................................7
Companies increasingly invest in unified marketing platforms centered
on customer behaviors and automation. ...........................................................8
Video: “What to Expect in 2013: Unified Marketing Databases” .............................................................9
Worksheet: “Unified Behavioral Database Planner” ....................................................................................10
Content marketing becomes even more critical as buyers demand
more personalized, uniquely relevant content. ..............................................12
Video: “What to Expect in 2013: Content Marketing” ..................................................................................13
Introduction .....................................................................................................................4
1
2
3

Customers expect a mobile-friendly experience. ........................................14
Worksheet: “Mobile Email Planner”...................................................................................................................... 16
The social conversation impacts every channel, from search
to Web to email and beyond. ................................................................................ 18
Video: “What to Expect in 2013: Social Media” ............................................................................................. 19
Marketing departments transform to better deliver individualized
conversations with buyers. ....................................................................................20
Worksheet: “Marketing Staffing Checklist” ......................................................................................................22
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 24
4
5
6

6
Key Marketing Trends for 2013 –
and Tips for Succeeding in the
Year of the Customer
The start of each year typically sees marketers ticking off a long list of resolutions
for the 365 days to come: Pitch this product more effectively, optimize that email
campaign, drive leads faster, get more social, lower costs, become more efficient
and dozens of others.
All noble goals. But in the year ahead, savvy businesses will shift their emphasis
off of themselves and onto their customers and prospects, acknowledging a trend
that’s cresting right now: customers, empowered byWeb and social tools, have
more control over the brand than ever.
Think of 2013, then, as the year of the customer.Your objective?Writing the next
chapter in your company’s illustrious marketing history by moving away from batch
and blast initiatives to delivering hyper-personalized campaign interactions to
segments of one.Our mission? Helping you get there with strategies, tactics, videos
and worksheets aimed at educating and empowering you to tackle the six biggest
digital marketing trends in 2013 and giving you a leg up on the competition.

Marketing in 2013: The State of the Union
Why the shift to a customer- and prospect-centric model in
2013? Buyers, fed up with crowded inboxes and irrelevant
advertising noise, are shutting out content that isn’t
relevant to them and using search and social to control
their own buyer journeys.
In this landscape, relying too heavily on generic
communications or even segmentation-based marketing
isn’t going to cut it. Now more than ever, you need to
understand the person that’s on your website, visiting your
social page, clicking through your emails, downloading
your customWeb tools, checking in at your stores, and
much more.
That’s why savvy marketers are ratcheting up the collection
of data and looking more and more to customer and
prospect actions to guide how they communicate with
each individual person in their database – across channels
and in real time.
Take email, for example. It’s still the No. 1 marketing
channel in terms of ROI, but it no longer has to be in a silo.
Behavioral marketing automation – the combination of
customer behaviors and automation – is transforming the
channel.With the right tools and know-how, you can now
useWeb visits, social interactions, purchase history and
countless other behaviors to guide the timing of the emails
you send.And you can build in behavior-driven dynamic
content to impact the messaging within each email. It’s just
one of many channels that’s transitioning from a relatively
static medium to a behavior-driven dynamo.
It’s no wonder, then, that marketers cite the need to
personalize messages based on consumer behavior
across channels as their biggest campaign management
challenge during the next two years1
.TheC-suite has
awoken to the value and potency of one-to-one content
as well, with nearly 90 percent of business leaders saying
getting closer to their customers is their top priority
for realizing their strategy over the next five years.2
Accordingly, the most proactiveCMOs are tapping new
digital data sources to discover what customers and
prospects want3
.That means more automation, more
behavior-triggered content, and more customized
websites and social sites.
So,areyoureadytomoveawayfromcommunicatingwith
segmentsofthousands,andmovetowardconversingwith
thousandsofsegmentofone?Tohelpyounailthetransition,
wepresentsixkeydigitalmarketingtrendsfor2013.
Silverpop’s platform is helping companies
worldwide achieve this new marketing vision.
View this presentation and see how Silverpop
customer SmartPak has implemented an
array of automated, behavior-driven lifecycle
messages to drive revenue. 

Big data moves from the aggregate to the individual
and starts to become actionable for smaller companies.
Big data. It’s quite the buzz right now, and with good
reason.With all the social chatter related to brands across
Facebook,Twitter, LinkedIn and more, massive new
customer and prospect data streams are being created by
the second. But in many ways, the concept of “big data”
isn’t new – it’s just evolving.
For decades the biggest companies have built data
warehouses, had scientists study the data, and used
predictive modeling to make high-level decisions about the
brand.The approach, while immensely valuable to huge
corporations, also has limitations:
• It’s expensive and slow, typically taking months
at a time
•Companies must find places to store the data and
figure out how they’re going to process it
• It’s traditionally been anonymous and aggregate,
rather than connected to individuals
• It’s fragmented (one warehouse for social, one for
Web analytics, etc.), so it’s not easily actionable
But what if you could take traditional notions of “big data,”
break down the silos, tie data to individuals, and connect
it to a digital marketing automation platform that enabled
you to act on this data?And then, conversely, use this
individual data to flavor the way you look at aggregate
data questions and predictive analytics?That’s the new
vision of “big data,” which doesn’t always involve a
scientific analysis team but can still drive massive increases
in engagement, conversions and revenue.
The good news is that in 2013 big data storage costs will
decrease, as will the time to process and analyze this data.
What to do with the data and insights, though, will become
a larger problem.The old way was to spend a month
getting a massive data set from months ago into a data
system, have your scientists crunch it, and then get a report
back that tells you how to approach different segments.
But this doesn’t necessarily help with connecting on an
individual level.
Can you use the data you’re amassing to be relevant on
your website, in real time, when the visitor shows up and
is ready to make a buying decision?This is a key question
marketers must ask and act on in 2013.
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Admittedly, thinking about the mountains of data across
so many channels can be overwhelming.The key is to not
let the data paralyze you but rather be empowered by
it, implementing a continuous improvement initiative in
which you use the data to capture insights that enable you
to improve and take action on that data.
Fortunately, this is no longer in the “too hard” pile.With the
recent advancements in marketing automation platforms,
the time is now to link up your data betweenWeb,CRM,
relational tables, email and beyond. (For more on the
unified marketing platform, see p. 8.)
For many, the “big data” holy grail is to capture social
interactions and take automated actions based on these
social behaviors, and in 2013 we’ll start to see companies
marrying social data with core marketing solutions. But
even while the technology is catching up to the social
explosion, there’s still plenty you can do with “big data.”
Think about the different ways you could take all the
information you have about your customers at the
individual level, boil it up in a semi-unstructured way,
and begin to use it to either prove or disprove different
hypotheses that you might make about your customers,
when they buy and why they react in the ways they do.
The possibilities are endless, so get started today with
the data you’re currently collecting, taking it one bite at a
time and integrating and appending other relational data
sources, capturing more and more behaviors. By doing so,
you’ll be building a strong foundation for using the “new”
big data to the fullest.
What to Expect in 2013: Big Data
View the video

Companies increasingly invest in unified marketing
platforms centered on customer behaviors and automation.
Given that today’s empowered buyers can pretty much get
any piece of information they want, at the exact moment
they want and on the device of their choice, businesses
are recognizing the need to enhance the buyer experience
by delivering relevant content when and where their
customers and prospects are.
Just think, if you can capture each of your customers’
unique interests and speak to them as individuals
instead of shouting the same message to everyone, then
communication channels should actually get quieter – less
email, less ads, less junk.What’s left? Highly relevant, hotly
anticipated content that people welcome.
The problem for most marketers is that they can’t deliver
individualized content to segments of one unless all
customer touch points are shared in a centralized database
that’s tied to a robust marketing automation platform.And
that’s where the unified behavioral marketing database
comes into play.
In 2013, leading companies will move away from a list-
based marketing approach to a constantly evolving
“persistent database” married to behaviors across multiple
channels, providing an all-encompassing view of customers
and prospects.
Think of this focus on listening to customer actions as the
rise of the “invisible” preference center, in which you pull
implicit data (based on your prospects’ and customers’
behaviors) in addition to the explicit data you (should)
gather from them via progressiveWeb forms, surveys and
traditional preference centers.
For marketers, the benefits of investing in a unified
marketing platform centered on customer behaviors
and automation are profound.To name just a few, this
approach enables you to:
•Use programs to deliver automated lifecycle
campaigns
2

•Utilize scoring to assess individual behaviors to see
where each prospect or customer is in the buying
process/journey
• Employ score-based triggers to deliver incredibly
relevant content
• Build campaigns that reach across channels
The common theme among these tactics? Less
dependence on mass messaging and an increased ability
to start speaking to people as individuals. Move in this
direction and you’ll be well positioned for success in 2013
and beyond.
What to Expect in 2013: Unified Marketing Databases
View the video

What customer or prospect data points and behaviors
would you like to capture about your customers that
you’re not currently capturing?
 Email opens/click behavior
Web page or website visits:
Which pages _______________________________
_______________________________
 Socially shared content
Video plays
Custom event (e.g. financial calculator)
Comments on blog
 Social network adds/likes/follows
 Downloads (e.g. white paper, how-to guide)
 Store or event check-in
 Item(s) purchased:
Which Item(s):______________________________
______________________________
Other_________________________________________
Other _________________________________________
Of the above, which three behaviors would you
consider the most important for your business in terms
of helping contacts become customers (or helping
current customers become more engaged)?
1) _______________________________________________
2) ______________________________________________
3) _______________________________________________
For each item, answer the following questions:
Data point/behavior #1: _____________________________
Is this information already captured? _________________
If yes, where is this information currently
being stored? _____________________________
If no, what needs to be done to capture
the data? _________________________________
Who is responsible? ________________________
Who’s the owner of this information? __________
__________________________________________
List steps to get it linked into your unified database:
1)_______________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________
4)_______________________________________________
5)_______________________________________________
being stored? _____________________________
the data? _________________________________
__________________________________________
UnifiedBehavioral
DatabasePlanner

1)_______________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________
4)_______________________________________________
5)_______________________________________________
being stored? _____________________________
the data? _________________________________
__________________________________________
1)_______________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________
4)_______________________________________________
5)_______________________________________________
What additional fields (e.g. birthdate, industry, etc.) do
you want to collect explicitly and add to your database?
1)_______________________________________________
a. How will you collect it?* ___________________
_______________________________________
b.Where will the data be stored? ______________
_______________________________________
2)_______________________________________________
a. How will you collect it? ____________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
4)_______________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
5)_____________________________________________
a. How will you collect it? __________________
______________________________________
b.Where will the data be stored? ____________
______________________________________
*Examples:SocialSign-In, ProgressiveWeb forms,
preference center, phone survey, data append from a
data agency, etc.

Content marketing becomes even more critical as buyers
demand more personalized, uniquely relevant content.
Between search engines, social networks and peer reviews,
there’s a wealth of content available to customers and
prospects who are trying to make buying decisions.The
result is that in both the B2B and B2C worlds, buyers are
typically much further down the buyer cycle by the time
they begin interacting with businesses directly – one study
showed that a customer’s first serious engagement with a
company rep typically occurs when the customer is already
57 percent through the purchase process4
.
Translation?You have to find ways to provide educational
content during these earlier stages, so when buyers are
ready to make a purchase – whether it’s a 55-inchTV for
their living room or a high-end software package for their
company — you’ve been guiding them all along.This
means paying more attention to creating content across
the entire buying (life)cycle, providing a seamless dialogue
from first touch to initial sale to loyal advocate.
To drive conversions, encourage social sharing and foster
a community of brand advocates, your content needs
to be more educational and engaging.The key is to be
personally relevant, using dynamic content or behavior-
driven programs to deliver content that aligns with the
recipient’s preferences, industry or buying cycle stage,
whether they’re “interested,” “engaged,” “inactive” or
“post-purchase.”
For example, let’s say a visitor to your site has just signed
up for your newsletter.You might send that contact a
welcome message with a dynamic content block(s) that
populates differently depending on whether the person:
• Has never made a purchase: Content block
populates with list of top 5 most popular items and
a discount incentive
• Just made a purchase in conjunction with
opting in to your newsletter: Photos of related
accessories and a link to a how-to video
• Made a purchase a few months ago: Updated info
on your product range, plus invite to follow your
company onTwitter
In this example, the purchase behavior drives the
content. But you could also establish rule sets based
on what pages the subscriber had visited on your site,
whether the person had liked you on Facebook,
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if he or she had ever checked in at one of your retail
stores, and much more.
The possibilities are endless. Imagine a prospect has
dropped by your booth and left his business card, scanned
one of yourQR codes or entered his info on an iPad.
You could send an automated follow-up email later
that day with different content depending on whether
the prospect was a first-time contact or had previously
downloaded content.The first-timer might get a message
referencing the features he showed an interest in along
with collateral that helps position you within the market.
The previous downloader could receive an invite to a
Webinar related to the content he had downloaded.
In many cases, you can increase engagement even
more by combining behavioral data with scoring
systems to help determine which content to deliver –
in real time. By building rule sets that trigger message
delivery when someone takes an action that pushes
him or her past a certain score threshold, you’ll boost
relevancy by serving up content on the recipient’s
timetable rather than the company’s.
If you want to meet customer and prospect needs by
providing a better balance of promotional email and
behavior-driven messages, make it a NewYear’s resolution
to take a careful look at what content you can offer across
channels and stages in the buying cycle. For companies
that ratchet up their focus on content marketing in 2013,
the outcome will be more personalized content across
Web, email and social – and happier customers as a result.
Online retailer
SSWorldwide has
driven big revenue by
delivering relevant
content based on buyer
behaviors. Read the
case study 
What to Expect in 2013: Content Marketing
View the video

4
PAGE 14
Customers expect a mobile-friendly
experience.
There are nearly 120 million smart phones now in the
UnitedStates alone5
, and email is the top activity on both
smartphones and tablets – with shopping close behind6
.
As the popularity of these mobile devices continues to
rise, customers will increasingly expect your content to be
delivered in a mobile-friendly fashion.
If you’ve been slow to adjust to the mobile customer,
you’re running a real risk in 2013 of providing an experience
that’s so poor that the customer goes somewhere else –
perhaps never to return again.Think of not going mobile
as akin to not being in the phone book a few decades ago
or, more recently, not showing up in search – if you’re not
there, you’re out of the game.
The time is now, then, to rethink design and streamline
conversion activity, delivering a seamless experience as
customers and prospects connect with your brand from
multiple devices.This requires not just designing for screen
size, but also designing for the mobile context.Today,
people are reading your content while waiting at stoplights
in their cars, as they’re watching sports onTV and while
they’re walking from the parking lot to the office building.
As a result, your content may need to be bigger, shorter
and simpler, and pop more. If you’re not already, in 2013
you should be:
• Making your emails and website scannable: You
want the reader to get the gist in the first screen
without having to scroll down two or three screens to
find your call to action or key content.
• Designing for the tap instead of the click: The
fingertip is the new mouse — more portable but less
accurate.So, you have to give it more room. Larger
font size and biggerCTA buttons facilitate this, but
you also have to avoid other potential hazards, such
as scrunched-up lists of tappable links.
• Making call-to-action buttons more prominent:
Along with larger type, this makes yourCTA stand
out and also increases tapping accuracy.Using a
“bulletproof” button that renders even if images don’t
will increase your tap potential.
• Streamlining your conversion activity: Has
your previous strategy involved packing as many
conversion opportunities as possible into an email
orWeb page? If so, consider focusing on a single

conversion where applicable – this may drive better
results for mobile viewers with limited time to sort
through your options.
As you work toward these goals, pay careful attention
to landing pages that will typically be navigated to
from mobile phones. If users are clicking on a QR code
or participating in a check-in program, you don’t want
to deliver them content that displays awkwardly on a
mobile device.
Of course, at many companies these different
channels are created by different departments,
presenting challenges for businesses looking to build
a positive mobile experience cross-channel. As a
result, savvy companies may want to re-examine their
content design process as they move into 2013.
Would you benefit from a process change in which
email,Web and social groups got together more
frequently to discuss mobile strategy? Are your
designers and coders building visual elements with
the mobile experience in mind? And how might you
shift to a responsiveWeb design approach?With the
number of U.S. smartphone users
projected to reach nearly 200
million by 2016 and the number
of U.S. tablet users expected
to leap to 133 million in 20157
,
you should be asking all these
questions and more as you
enter the new year.

Email Project and Name
________________________________________________
 SendTimeOptimization
OR
Target send date _____ : _____ send time
Actual send date _____ : _____ send time
Goals
Open rate ________________________________________
Click-through rate _________________________________
Bounce rate ______________________________________
Approvals
Name ___________________________________________
Date _________ Notes______________________________
_____________________________________ Complete 
Name ___________________________________________
Date _________ Notes______________________________
_____________________________________ Complete 
Name ___________________________________________
Date _________ Notes______________________________
_____________________________________ Complete 
List orQuery
Database or list name ______________________________
List size _________________________________________
Where is the email used
 Stand alone  In automated program ____________
________________________________
MobileEmail
Planner
Mobile-Friendly EmailChecklist
Your key content is “above the fold” so recipients can
see it without having to scroll.
There is ample space between links and/orCTAs so
readers can use their fingertips as a mouse.
Your call-to-action buttons are prominent to increase
tapping accuracy.
Your message focuses on a single conversion (or
minimum conversion opportunities).
The “From” name is readily identifiable, and the
most important content is placed at the beginning of
the subject line.
Sample Smartphone
Screen Sizes
iPhone4/4S...................... 960x640
iPhone5.......................... 1136x640
SamsungGalaxy............ 1280x720
MotorolaDroidRazr...... 1280x720

Variables
Subject line A ___________________________________
B ____________________________________
C ____________________________________
D ____________________________________
“From” name A __________________________________
B __________________________________
C __________________________________
D __________________________________
Test Plan
______ % of database
Winner determined by:
 Best open rate  Best click rate  Best conversion
rate
Determine within _
_____ days.
After test:
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
Email DynamicContent
Rules__________________________________________
Content name __________________________________
Content _______________________________________
______________________________________________
Rules__________________________________________
Content name __________________________________
Content _______________________________________
______________________________________________
Rules__________________________________________
Content name __________________________________
Content _______________________________________
______________________________________________
Images
Image name ____________________________________
Where Stored __________________________________
Complete 
Image name ____________________________________
Where Stored __________________________________
Complete 
Image name ____________________________________
Where Stored __________________________________
Complete 
Image name ____________________________________
Where Stored __________________________________
Complete 

5
PAGE 18
The social conversation impacts every channel,
from search to Web to email and beyond.
Social media has been building in impact, with the “big 3”
of Facebook,Twitter and LinkedIn topping 1 billion, 500
million and 175 million users, respectively.Toss in emerging
players such asGoogle+, Pinterest, Foursquare and others,
and it’s easy to see why marketers will be paying more
attention to social than ever in 2013.
More and more, though, the way savvy companies look
at social is changing. Rather than just another channel to
publish promotional content, social is becoming about the
unique interaction and engagement that can take place
there.So it’s not so much about a specific social network
as about connecting conversations, people and important
ideas across all your digital assets to create momentum.
Think of social in 2013 as not just an extra channel, but as a
medium that’s woven into every channel:
• Search: More and more buyers are starting their
decision-making process via online research and
talking to other users8
, and search engines are
increasingly playing favorites with social content,
video, Facebook,Twitter, etc.As a result, savvy
marketers will be applyingSEO-like strategies to social
channels and content.The names you use for your
social profile when you’re making a Facebook page
or creating tabs within social sites impact your search
rank and should be given the sameSEO attention as
your website.
Marketers looking to enhance their social search
strategy will also be looking carefully at ways to
drive social sharing. More and more, search engine
algorithms are factoring in the number of social shares,
meaning that the number ofTwitter followers you
have – and the percentage that retweet your content
– could play a key role in determining your ultimate
search rank.So not only does your page need to be
SEO-friendly, it also needs to get “social love” to boost
it up in search results.
• Websites: Less corporate-speak and more peer
recommendations will be the trend in 2013 as websites
become more socially enabled. For example, if you
have a list of white papers on your site, you might
highlight those that are most popular, reveal how
often they’ve been downloaded and share what
percentage of readers gave each document a thumbs-
up. Not only does this incorporate customer voices
into your site, but it also saves visitors valuable time.
And by adding social elements to your site, you’ll make
it feel like it’s part of a bigger ecosystem and not just
the monolithic face of your company.
Similarly, if new visitors are coming to your site via
their friends’ or business associates’Tweets, likes,
pins, etc., lengthy forms and stiff language can be an
immediate turnoff. Look for more companies to use
Dairy Queen uses
dynamic content and
social marketing tools
in Silverpop Engage
to drive fan club
membership, boost
store traffic and increase
customer satisfaction.
Read the case study. 

progressive forms and social login (see the “Data”
bullet at right) to create a more social experience on
their website and landing pages.
•Email:Ifsocialisabouttheconversation,emailisabout
theconversion.Coordinatethetwosothey’reworking
together,andyoucanmaximizerevenue.In2013,then,
themostsuccessfulmarketerswillincorporateamore
humanvoiceintotheiremails–lessstiltedlanguage
andmoreemployeevoices—andincreasetheuse
ofsocialandpeercontentwithinmessages.Thiscan
beespeciallyeffectivewhencombinedwithdynamic
content.Forexample,youcouldserveupaproduct
orWebinarrecommendationbasedonarecipient’s
behaviorsandtossinsomecustomerreviewsofthat
productorWebinarforgoodmeasure.
• Mobile check-ins: With the number of Foursquare
users topping 30 million, and many of these people
sharing their check-ins viaTwitter, socially aware
companies will increasingly use automated (or manual)
responses toTweeted check-ins to add touch points
• Content: More marketers are going to look closely
at giving away content for free (or for less than they
have in the past) in an effort to increase social sharing.
In addition, savvy marketers should be constantly
looking for ways to make social sharing easier, such as
including social-sharing links within PDFs (complete
with built-inTweets) and designing campaigns built
around sharing content.
•Data:2013willbetheyearsocialsign-inbecomesmore
widespread.Onthecustomer/prospectside,theease
ofentrywillmakeitapreferredoption,especiallyas
peoplebecomemoreaccustomedtousingtheirsocial
loginasanalternatetofillingoutlongregistration
ordownloadforms.Fromabusinesspointofview,
marketersinterestedingatheringinfoforcampaigns
thatmightbechallengingtogetotherwise—suchas
birthdateinformationthatcanbeusedtodrivebirthday
campaigns–willlikewisebeincentedtostartofferinga
socialloginoptionmorefrequently.
Asforsocialitself,ittoowillbeevolving,becoming
morepersonalthanever.NewFacebookads
areenablingsmartmarketerstoachievehyper-
relevant,uber-targeteddeliverybasedonbuyer
behaviors.Furthermore,companiescantake
advantageofbehavioralmarketingautomationto
serveupindividualizedcontentonFacebook.Given
buyers’propensitytointeractandengagewhen
theytrustthebrand,itwillbehoovecompanies
tocreateamarketingexperiencethatfocuseson
buildingrelationships.Ifyouwanttotakeyour
marketingtonewheightsin2013,makesureyou’re
takingadvantageoftheuniqueopportunitiessocial
providestotreatpeopleasindividuals.
What to Expect in 2013: Social Media
View the video

6
PAGE 20
Marketing departments transform to better deliver
individualized conversations with buyers.
In order to accommodate new responsibilities resulting
from empowered buyers doing more research on their
own, forward-thinking companies will be taking a close
look at new marketing investments and organizational
shifts in 2013.The democratization of one-to-one
behavioral marketing will arrive as we hit the inflection
point of technology and data becoming increasingly
affordable and available.
As a result, many businesses will be shifting budget
allocation from broad awareness and programs targeted at
demographic segments and industry verticals to marketing
to the individual.Think of it is a shift from left (broad) to
center (mid-sized segments) to right (segments of one).To
be clear, none of these groups are going away – companies
will still invest inSuper Bowl ads and develop campaigns
targeting males ages 18 to 32. But these businesses will
increasingly be marketing to “JoeSmith” within that
segment — and budgeting accordingly.
As budgets shift to account for more behavioral marketing
automation, they’ll also be more ROI-driven than ever,
tapping into automation’s rich capabilities of providing
reporting and analytics that enable to you to track revenue
sources in increasingly granular ways.At the same time,
savvy companies will also be building in budget for
experimentation, giving theCMO room to operate as a
“venture capitalist” who invests in new channels to
ensure the company stays on the leading edge of these
emerging mediums.
With serious risers in the behavioral marketing space
adding more technical resources to traditional email
marketing, marketers will proportionally be tasked with
managing more technical systems (relational tables,
analytics, etc.) that help power triggered messages.
Forward-thinking businesses will thus look toward hiring
and training systems-thinking marketers who are both
creative and adept at rules-based logic.
Shifting buyer habits will also require stronger, more
integrated departments with new responsibilities for
various sections within the marketing department.
Examples include:
• Marketing operations:This hot newcomer is playing
the primary role of enabling the organization to
scale using tools such as marketing automation to
accommodate more educated buyers in the early part
of the buying cycle.

• Demand gen: Existing email marketers, direct
marketers and campaign managers should make both
the mind-set and organizational transition to demand
generation specialists, including a focus on both
inbound and outbound demand generation.
• Product marketing: Having strong alignment
with sales is becoming increasingly critical as this
department can be a strong asset as a second-level
sales resource, especially for large opportunities or
when a buyer’s requirements are unique.
• Marketing communications: This group must
become more social to keep pace with today’s more
social customers, crafting a strategy that connects the
company/brand message with critical social channels
and influencers to build its social audience.
In addition, a lot of companies are starting to create
new upper-level positions (director,VP orC-suite) within
marketing to fill these new needs. For example, some
are adding a vice president of marketing technology role
whose job is to understand and drive all the technologies
that marketing needs.Others are hiring a chief content
officer to own and oversee content — an indication of how
content is becoming a bigger focus.
With all this technological innovation, marketers are
going to need more training.YetSirius reports that 81
percent of organizations spend less than $1,000 per year
on marketing training — and 36 percent spend nothing
at all9
.Top-performing companies, then, will invest more
in certification programs, user group meetings and other
forms of training to close the gap between marketers’ skills
and the processes and technologies they’re now being
expected to employ, understanding that this increased
education will pay long-term dividends.

When looking at the organization of your marketing
department, are you striving to or already meet these
requirements?
• Do your personnel have the knowledge to tackle
rule-based logic and advanced segmentation
queries in order to leverage more technical digital
marketing tools? Yes  No
• If not, what training programs could help bring
them up to speed? __________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
• Does your marketing department align with current
buyer patterns? Yes  No
•If not, how could each group within your
marketing department shift to keep up with
changing buyer patterns? ____________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
• Would your department benefit from the creation
of a new position, such as one dedicated to
marketing technology or content? _____________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
• Are you able to accurately and efficiently track ROI
across channels and campaigns? Yes  No
• If not, what areas, processes or technologies need
better tracking? ____________________________
__________________________________________
• Do you allow room in your budget to experiment
with the latest technologies and emerging platforms
or channels that have the potential to improve your
marketing performance? Yes  No
• If not, what adjustments could you make to stay on
top of the latest innovations and communication
trends? ___________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
• Are there changes you can make in your budget to
help the department transition from broad segmenta-
tion to one-to-one messaging? Yes  No
• If yes, define those areas: ____________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
MarketingStaffing
Checklist

• Does your marketing department resemble the
general structure outlined below? Yes  No
Note the areas where you might be different as well
as the functions that might need investigating:
• Marketing Leader
• DemandGeneration
Campaign design
Campaign management
 Marketing automation setup and execution
 Data management
Telemarketing
• MarketingOperations
 Marketing processes and alignment
 Service level agreements
 Data
 Systems
 Reporting
• Product Marketing
 Sales enablement tools
 Slide decks
Case studies
 RFP response templates
• MarketingCommunications
Written, printed and digital communications
Content creation
 Social media
 Media and analyst relations
• Additional notes: ___________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________

Conclusion
The world of marketing can change dramatically in just a
year.While considering buyer preferences has long been
an important step in delivering relevant and effective
campaigns, in 2013 focusing on the customer experience
will be crucial.And to build a foundation for a superior
customer experience, leading companies will be investing
more resources for capturing and harnessing a wealth of
data across channels and tying it to individuals.
Of course, data itself isn’t enough to build relevancy.So,
savvy marketers will be creating a sophisticated content
marketing strategy that takes advantage of the power of
marketing automation to tap this data and deliver content
– in real time – that’s triggered by each individual’s actions,
resulting in astonishingly relevant levels of content served
up to segments of one.
In today’s multichannel world, enhancing the user
experience also means communicating via the
channels they’re communicating with.And that means
acknowledging the massive role that social and mobile
play in buyers’ lives by weaving social throughout the
user experience and delivering content that’s pleasant to
interact with via smartphones and tablets.
All these shifts require new roles, budgets and training. Is
your marketing team equipped and ready to pay attention
to customer and prospect actions and let buyers be their
own personal marketing guides, choosing their own brand
adventures that lead them down the path to increased
engagement, satisfaction and loyalty? If so, 2013 just might
be the year you write the most exciting marketing chapter
in your company’s history.
Footnotes
1-Forrester Research Inc., “Q4 2011GlobalCross-
ChannelCampaign Management ForresterWave
CustomerOnlineSurvey,” 2011
2-IBM Institute for BusinessValue, “Capitalizing on
Complexity: Insights from theGlobalChief Executive
Study,” May 2010
TWEET THIS!
ReadingSilverpop’s
“6 Key MarketingTrends
for 2013”

3-IBM Institute for BusinessValue,” FromStretched
toStrengthened: Insights from theGlobalChief
MarketingOfficerStudy,” 2011
4-Marketing LeadershipCouncil, “Customer Purchase
ResearchSurvey,” 2011
5-Comscore, “July 2012U.S. Mobile MarketShare,”
Sept. ‘12
6-Pew ResearchCenter, “The Explosion in Mobile
Audiences andWhat It Means for News,”Oct. ‘12
7-eMarketer, “Mobile MarketingTrends, Insights and
Best Practices,”Oct. ‘12
8-Enquiro, “Integrated Persuasion:Online andOffline,”
2011
9-Sirius Decisions, “MarketingAutomation: Mind the
(Skills)Gap,” 2011
Silverpop’s digital marketing automation
platform was designed to make it simple
to build hyper-personalized campaigns,
creating individualized experiences for every
relationship.Watch our demo to see our
product in action, and contact Silverpop to
see how we can help you accomplish your
marketing goals for 2013.

What to expect_in_2013

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