CRM and Marketing Automation Blog

Charles Trentham is a diehard tech blogger who loves to write about software, technology, and future science. After retiring from a small telecom startup after the bubble burst, he's been blogging full time, including some freelance work on such topics as internet security software in order to feed his tech habits. He enjoys spending time with his family and Kelpie named Elaine.

HubSpot released its 5th State of Inbound Marketing report, gathering insights from more than 3,300 Marketers around the globe. This comprehensive report contains mind-blowing stats and covers how Marketers are using inbound marketing strategies and tactics. A few of the highlights include: 

Gartner Research reported significant changes to come in the mobile CRM market. Gartner predicts that mobile CRM (Customer Relationship Management) apps will explode by 500% by 2014, another sign that the strong cloud adoption is forever changing the way we do business and manage business applications deployment.

We recently wrote an article about the benefits of progressive profiling, what it is and why it can boost lead conversion and qualification. Here are 9 tips to help you master progressive profiling.

Australian marketers are investing significantly in content marketing according to a new Australian content marketing report but are also facing many content marketing challenges.

A 2012 Deloitte survey on the key strategy initiatives of Australian NFP organisations found that 29% aim to increase fundraising activity, 23% plan to reduce costs and 20% generate new revenue. But these strategic goals are hindered by 3 major inhibitors: increased intensity of the competition, (42%), reduction in government funding (25%) and declining fundraising dollars (24%).

Landing pages and forms are necessary in modern marketing: they allow you to convert anonymous website visitors to leads and capture lead information for qualification. 

With over 10 million downloads and a community of 30,000 registered developers, SugarCRM Community Edition (CE) is extremely popular, free and has deeper functionality than many commercial offerings on the market today.

Business-to-business marketers will focus on social media and inbound marketing strategies in 2013, according to a recent Software Advice report.

Most organisations aim to be customer centric. IBM’s 2010 global CEO survey found that 88% of CEOs surveyed said their number 1 priority was getting closer to their customers over next the 5 years. Yet, leading organisational change and achieving customer centricity is easier said than done.