(This is a guest post by John Armstrong, Head of Marketing, Lead Force1)

Even attendees with years of experience as seasoned entrepreneurs and marketers learned something new about marketing in today’s networked world at the CXO Forum sponsored by the Silicon Valley Association of Start-up Entrepreneurs on February 10.   The meeting featured presentations by Yesh Subramanian of ASYS as well as our own Srihari Kumar, CEO of LeadForce1.  Yesh provided some valuable do’s and don’ts for B2B marketers, and illustrated how much the game has changed in just the past few years with the rise and influence of the now ubiquitous on-line social networking platforms such as LinkedIn.  Leveraging the new, non-traditional marketing channels can yield powerful results when properly executed and guided by the latest generation of marketing automation tools.

The other big change that marketers face is the growing demand for accountability and ROI justification for every marketing dollar that is spent.  This is particularly important when significant portions of marketing budgets are being invested in lead-generation programs to feed the insatiable demands of sales teams.  Without the discipline that automation brings to the marketing process, however, incredible waste of resources can occur, and Srihari shared some particularly painful examples of well-intentioned but badly misapplied marketing funds: Think $100K misspent over a period of four years on an ad words program (and completely unaccounted for) in a misguided attempt to generate leads.

Srihari’s well-received presentation demonstrated the value of marketing automation, and specifically the unique value of LeadForce1, as a way to create an efficient, replicable process which not only generates more valuable, qualified, and information-rich leads, but also enables marketing and sales to drive those leads more rapidly to customer contact and signed contract!  Based on the number of attendees exchanging business cards with Srihari at the end of the meeting, it would appear that B2B entrepreneurs will be integrating this effective new approach to marketing into their business strategy.