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Howard Sewell

Howard Sewell
Howard has worked in marketing for 25+ years, and is president of Spear Marketing Group, a full-service B2B marketing agency. Howard is a frequent speaker and contributor to marketing publications on topics that include demand generation, digital marketing, ABM, and marketing technology.

Branding is Not Demand Generation. Stop Pretending That It Is.

Hey, I get it. Demand generation is hot. It's the marketing movement of the moment. It's why demand generation managers are suddenly as common...

2 Email Campaigns Show How (and How Not) to “Sell” Content

Two email campaigns that arrived in my inbox recently serve as useful illustrations of how best to promote informational content. One, a white paper...

Why & How to Test Subject Lines on Your Next Email Campaign

If you took a poll of B2B marketers (see below), my guess would be that only a small percentage test email subject lines with...

If It’s Wednesday, It Must Be a Webinar Invitation

A client writes:I attended a Webinar recently at which one of the speakers prescribed scheduling lead nurturing emails on different days of the week...

3 Keys to an Effective Autoresponder Program

Studies show that responding to new sales leads promptly, literally within minutes, can have a dramatic impact on the rate at which those leads...

Maker’s Mark: PR Debacle or Social Media Genius?

By now you've probably read about a momentous recent decision, and the very public reversal of that decision, made by Maker's Mark, a distiller...

How to Sell Marketing Automation to Your CEO (& Other Burning Questions)

Recently I was asked to contribute some thoughts to Marketo's new ebook, "The Definitive Guide to Marketing Automation." You can download a free copy...

Measuring the True Impact of Marketing Campaigns: A Conversation with Bonnie Crater

Bonnie Crater is a five-time Vice President of Marketing, a former colleague of this blogger from our days at Oracle in the late 80s,...

A Really Useful B2B Marketing Benchmark Report from Optify

You see a lot of so-called "benchmark reports" in B2B marketing circles, and most of them are, well: complete rubbish. The reason many of...

Taking Stock of Your Lead Management Process: 5 Key Questions

Key to designing an effective lead nurturing program is taking stock of your current lead management process. By asking the right questions, you'll not...

3 Demand Generation Goals to Avoid in 2013

1. Launch a lead nurturing program. Don't get me wrong: lead nurturing is a worthy investment for most companies, but making lead nurturing a goal...

Email Marketing 101: No-One Cares About Your Product

An effective email campaign has one goal and one goal only: getting the reader to respond to your campaign. This means that, in order...

3 Models for Gating Lead Generation Content on Your Website

Ask a group of B2B marketers whether their Websites' lead generation content (white papers, archived Webinars, case studies, videos, etc.) should be gated or...

How Much Of My Demand Generation Budget Should I Be Spending On Lead Nurturing?

It's that time of year again, and marketers' thoughts turn to budgeting for the next 12 months. One of the most frequent questions we're...

Why Your Email Subject Line Shouldn’t Be a Yes/No Question

If the secret to success of an effective email subject line is to grab the attention of someone with a potential interest in your...

Has Content Marketing Made Branding Obsolete?

Confession: as a died-in-the-wool direct marketer, I am a branding cynic. My general attitude towards branding is summed up in the old maxim: "Branding is...

B2B Display Ads with Demographic Targeting: Why Doesn’t Google Do This?

Earlier this week, San Francisco-based Demandbase announced its "Company Targeted Advertising," a new platform that allows B2B marketers to target online display advertising either...

Ego Bidding: Why Paying for #1 Position on Google Costs You More Than You Think

In the process of managing search marketing campaigns for clients, we occasionally run into situations where client management is dictating that their company "own"...

How Good Content can Help Improve Database Health

According to business information provider ZoomInfo (see graphic below, further data here), more than 70 percent of business cards have one or more changes...

3 Crucial Tips for Promoting Live Product Demos

Let's face it; a live product demo is a tough sell. As an unvarnished display of your product's capabilities, a product demo is only...

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