As content messaging plays an increasingly critical role for prospects in the buying process, marketers are uniquely challenged to provide relevant value at every possible touch point. That said, it has become imperative for BtoB sellers to simultaneously focus on the buyer and adopt an operations mindset. This requires organizations to implement new frameworks for internal consistency and better overall market positioning. These and other tactics are explored in the new book “Balancing The Demand Equation,” by Adam B. Needles, Chief Strategy Officer at LeftBrain DGA, a Silicon Valley, CA-based demand generation agency.

DemandGen International, Inc., a global team of marketing automation and lead management experts, today announced that a dozen of its clients have been named finalists in the fifth annual Markie Awards. Sponsored by Eloqua, the annual Markie Awards honor outstanding accomplishments in marketing impact and revenue generation. Twelve DemandGen clients placed as finalists in 13 of the 20 categories. Winners will be announced on October 20, 2011 at the annual Eloqua Experience user conference in San Francisco, CA.

Companies in retail and entertainment have seen success in driving customer engagement with gamification tools. While applications like foursquare, Farmville and even Facebook Places have made brand interaction a game by allowing consumers to collect prizes, points and badges in exchange for coupons and free goods, it’s been difficult to crack the code on how BtoB companies can leverage the strategy to engage buyers.

During the Gamification Summit September 15-16 in New York City, Sarah Faulkner, Program Manager for Microsoft Office Labs, discussed how the development of its Ribbon Hero game helped increase productivity and enthusiasm among users, and helped created consistency across organizations. Office Labs is the arm of Microsoft Office that tests new ideas within the company that will be rolled out online and in new software.

By Cari Baldwin, Co-Founder and Partner, Bluebird Strategies

The mojo of marketing was in full swing at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce 2011. As a marketer, if you were not sure what you would learn and find, Dreamforce did not disappoint and was a great opportunity to visit with 40,000 of your closest friends.

By Cari Baldwin, Co-Founder and Partner, Bluebird Strategies

The mojo of marketing was in full swing at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce 2011. As a marketer, if you were not sure what you would learn and find, Dreamforce did not disappoint and was a great opportunity to visit with 40,000 of your closest friends.

By Cari Baldwin, Co-Founder and Partner, Bluebird Strategies

The mojo of marketing was in full swing at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce 2011. As a marketer, if you were not sure what you would learn and find, Dreamforce did not disappoint and was a great opportunity to visit with 40,000 of your closest friends.

ExactTarget, provider of email and interactive marketing solutions, recently announced the expansion of its product suite, designed to provide marketers with new cloud-based solutions to plan, create, automate and measure interactive marketing campaigns in real time.

Built on the ExactTarget Interactive Marketing Hub, the new solutions extend the capabilities of the company's cross-channel marketing platform with drag and drop automation across email, mobile, Facebook and Twitter and a framework for third-party application development.

"We are in a new era of marketing — one of an incredibly empowered cross-channel consumer who is interacting with brands via email, Twitter, Facebook, mobile and the Web, all from the phone they carry in their purse or pocket," said Scott Dorsey, Co-Founder and CEO, ExactTarget. "Marketers must move quickly and embrace the real-time reality of this new era or risk finding themselves and their brands irrelevant."

By Tim Handorf, VP of Product Management, BigMachines

The sales industry is constantly on the go and let’s face it, selling is not a “some of the time” thing. It’s an “all the time” thing. Sales executives are expected to always be upselling existing customers and finding new customers. Selling is in your blood and sales people know it is most effective when they are out on the road selling.

By Tim Handorf, VP of Product Management, BigMachines

The sales industry is constantly on the go and let’s face it, selling is not a “some of the time” thing. It’s an “all the time” thing. Sales executives are expected to always be upselling existing customers and finding new customers. Selling is in your blood and sales people know it is most effective when they are out on the road selling.

Email marketing and social media marketing company iContact recently announced the continued momentum of iContact for Salesforce during the 2011 Dreamforce conference.

Since its inception, iContact has prioritized its integration with Salesforce.com’s CRM products and has seen significant growth within BtoB organizations integrating the solution. “In just one year, we’ve seen strong global adoption of iContact for Salesforce,” said Ryan Allis, CEO of iContact in a press release. Currently there are more than 500 salesforce.com customers in the AppExchange since the launch of iContact for Salesforce in September 2010.