Most businesses will increase their email marketing investments during 2013, and a majority also plan to integrate email with their social media and mobile marketing, according to a study released this week by StrongMail.

The email marketing solution provider surveyed 1,000 business executives during November, 2012. About 56% of the respondents said they plan to increase their email marketing budgets, making email the leading source of marketing investment for 2013.

Demand Gen Report announced this week that a diverse group of B2B content marketing industry leaders will share their expertise as featured speakers at their second annual Content2Conversion Conference, to be held April 22-23, 2013 at the Times Center in New York City.

Convent2Conversion is the only event of its kind solely dedicated to addressing the content and demand gen needs of B2B marketers. The event will focus on empowering marketers with strategies for mapping, developing and using content marketing to nurture buyer relationships and improve conversions.

Extraprise And Exclusive Concepts Partner To Bring Multi-Channel Marketing Capabilities To B2B And B2C Marketers

Extraprise, a revenue optimization service provider for B2B and B2C enterprises, and Exclusive Concepts, a leading e-Commerce marketing firm, recently announced a partnership.

Using Exclusive Concepts’ search engine optimization, pay-per-click, and web site speed and conversion optimization services, Extraprise clients can supplement their outbound email marketing and mobile i2i Marketing Services.

Sage North America yesterday announced the release of Sage SalesLogix v8.0 CRM system with enhancements to the web and mobile interfaces designed to simplify role-based data access, searching and collaboration. Other additional features include enhanced security options and new administrator customization tools.

Sage has also advanced Sage SalesLogix Cloud deployment capabilities with additional memory capacity, an improved “Go Live” process and expanded performance testing, according to a company release.

Union Metrics this week announced the general availability of its analytics platform for Tumblr and said that it has been named as Tumblr's preferred analytics provider.

The company says that its Tumblr analytics solution is geared towards measuring a company's audience characteristics and reach on the microblogging site, as well as for monitoring topics and conversations related to a specific brand.

Aprimo this week released an update to its integrated marketing management suite, including a number of new features aimed at improving usability and productivity.

Aprimo Marketing Studio 8.8 is being billed by the company as a "high productivity" version of its flagship integrated marketing management (IMM) offering. According to the company, the update includes dozens of enhancements that improve the efficiency and effectiveness of users' marketing campaigns.

Marketing executives are increasingly confident about their organizations' business performance, according to a new study from the CMO Council. Yet many CMOs still see major room for improvement in their digital marketing capabilities.

The group's "State of Marketing 2012" report found that fewer than one in five CMOs think their teams excel at digital marketing. Nevertheless, an average of 27% of a company's marketing budget is now spent on digital initiatives, compared to 23% devoted to traditional marketing campaigns.

As the marketing automation industry matures, some of its most prominent players are moving on to new markets and new challenges. Demand Gen Report recently caught up with a few of these executives to discuss their new roles, including their use of content marketing strategies and the challenges of working in startup environments.