September 17, 2008 | 4:34pm
Telling Effective B-to-B Brand Stories - A Strategic Success Factor (Curt Hitchcock)
These stories have the power to unite companies in a common purpose and direction. And they can help you build a deeper connection with customers. Brand stories are cumulative and strategic; they build on each other and help define what differentiates your company and why someone should consider buying from you. Brand stories are far more than cute or clever anecdotes, they can be key business drivers. The more coherent and compelling your brand story, the more it will power the success of your company. B-to-B marketers in this new broadband world have an opportunity to tell bigger and better stories than ever. This is new territory but the potential for enhancing your brand is enormous. ---More--- |
June 25, 2008 | 11:50am
Are your employees on board? (Erin Michalak)
Although it is essential, many marketers often skip the crucial step of internal branding. Selling your brand to your employees should come way before you try to sell your brand to your customers and/or prospects. If your employees don’t believe in what you are selling or don’t understand it, then it is likely all you will deliver to your customers are empty promises. Your first step, after you’ve determined what your brand positioning and messaging should be, is to infuse the brand personality into all aspects of the company. Support from upper management is key. ---More--- |
June 25, 2008 | 11:45am
Strategy, Branding and Leadership (Chuck Manners)
Mr. Immelt has a very good sense of what he wants the GE brand to stand for going forward - innovation in emerging businesses in the 21st century (for now, that means big investments in health-care and energy.) Much of the growth in GE’s strategy will come |
May 2, 2008 | 11:45am
SEO - Quality over Quantity (Mike Wayde)
In a web 2.0 world, it is becoming a continuous struggle to stay on top of SEO best practices. Staying at the basics, companies need to understand that SEO is moving more to quality as opposed to quantity. In the past many companies got on the SEO bandwagon by focusing primarily on Businesses need to understand that the SEO landscape is constantly evolving. No longer are web spiders just looking at meta data. They’re looking at more important information about a site to determine how high it should rank. Here are some basics for business to business marketers. Consider focusing your meta descriptions and keywords around solutions and not just hardware. Traditionally, customers are looking to solve problems, not just to look at equipment. |
March 30, 2008 | 11:14am
Get started with social media (Russ Green)
Why haven’t the 45% made the plunge…or at least stuck their toe in the water? A new study by TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony sheds some light on what we have found to be true through experience. The authors of the survey of 71 marketing professionals in the U.S., Canada, France and the U.K. say that many marketers, “particularly the slower-moving” ones (their words, not mine!), want “best practices” and “proven models.” That’s understandable, ---More--- |
March 21, 2008 | 1:02pm
Think Like A Publisher (Russ Green)
A recent article in B2B Magazine cites moves by B-to-B media companies Reed Elsevier, United Business Media and Ziff Davis that, collectively, point to the difficulties trade publishers are having in managing the migration from print to online.
Ziff Davis filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing a decrease in revenue from print advertising and subscriptions. UBM announced that it had restructured CMP and eliminated the CMP name. And Reed Elsevier put its Reed Business Information unit on the block. While we are not happy to see reputable trade publishers suffering, the future belongs to those who leverage technology and find, or hold on to, the B-to-B audience. As we discuss in our white paper on this topic, trade magazine publishers once owned the franchise as aggregators of information. ---More--- |
March 18, 2008 | 9:38am
The top 10 questions that indicate you need to think beyond traditional marketing tactics (Jim Castanzo)
I’m looking at things from a slightly different perspective now – a perspective of someone with a lead “creative” title and responsibilities. As I remove my account manager hat, something strikes me. We creative folks have more tools at our disposal – blogs, podcasts, email marketing, and the list goes on. Our primary function has always been to think of new and unique ways to tell our client’s story, demonstrate a benefit and craft compelling ways to reach out to a marketer’s various constituents – engineers, channel partners, integrators, other influencers and ultimately, end-users. Sure, we still need to apply our traditional creative skills, but we now have these new, exciting tools at our disposal. ---More--- |
February 18, 2008 | 3:29pm
Advance Sales Via The Web Part 1 (Mike Wayde)
In the Internet age, consumers like to comparison shop. Help them make better decisions with a robust Web site. Today, when most people want information, they go to the Web – to educate themselves, to look for solutions or to compare companies and products. Often they may be ready to buy, based on the information they find. That’s why it’s so important to design a Web site that includes all the information customers need at any stage in the buying process. Your Web site is your electronic storefront and as such, it should accomplish three things. First, it should be easy to locate. You can invest thousands of dollars on the best Web site in the world, but if you don’t drive traffic to it, the site won’t do you much good. Second, your Web site should position your |
February 4, 2008 | 11:16am
Cell Phone or Sell Phone (Mike Wayde)
When should B to B marketers start thinking about mobile technologies?
The answer is now. Think about it. There are nearly 200 million subscribers in the U.S., which is about 65% of the So how should B2B marketers take advantage of this newest medium? There’s no one perfect answer. The best thing to do is start understanding and implementing the basics. Text messaging was one of the first and most elementary forays into mobile marketing. We’ve all seen text messaging promotions using short codes on popular TV shows like "American Idol" or |
January 25, 2008 | 1:47pm
In a recent article published by The Economic Times, Nirmalya Kumar encourages B-to-B companies to embrace a new culture of communications when selling to prospective customers – the 3Vs – “valued customer, value proposition and value network.” While seen as a complement to the 4Ps that comprise the typical marketing mix (product, pricing, promotion and placement), the 3V-approach is more strategic in nature. Therefore, it is more likely to engage the CEO at a strategic level during a time when many CMOs are struggling to stay relevant and remain on the payroll (the average tenure of a CMO is 26.8 months according to BtoB Magazine). Realizing this philosophy of customer value management |
