In a recent interview, Bob Hutchins and Greg Stielstra claim that demographics no longer rule the marketing roost, ideology does:

…there are no Facebook groups for traditional segments like women 25-54 or households making $75k+/yr. Instead, people define themselves according to their interests [...] which is why there are Facebook groups for Scrapbooking, Yoga, and fans of the Green Bay Packers.

All of this is exciting and scary to me as a marketer. It’s easy identify 25-54 women living in households that made $75k+/yr. It’s hard to know who’s an avid scapbooker.

A few days ago I read Christine Crandell’s post on Forbes about integrating sales and marketing. Although the post was nothing that hasn’t been said before, I did appreciate this sentiment:

“The cultural shift [of sales and marketing integration] begins with the development of a common language…”

But do we find a way to make that cultural shift? How do you create a common lingo, demonstrate the value of each department, and develop strategic goals across departments?

A road trip.

A really long road trip to visit a prospect or client.

According to AdAge,* some upper-tier schools (e.g. Cornell) are investing more in marketing than they ever have before.

Frankly, I’m not surprised. Universities no longer have the power, students do.

Not too long ago, institutions of higher ed could self-select simply by seeing who applied and rejecting those they didn’t want, especially schools of Cornell’s stature.

That’s not the case any more. Schools now fight over the best and brightest students for many reasons, but it’s my opinion these two are the most important: