Posts Tagged ‘B2B marketers’
Monday, March 7th, 2011
By Barbara Bix
B2B marketers will welcome Paul Gillin’s and Eric Schwartzman’s latest book, Social Marketing to the Business Customer
. As the authors note in the preface, most discussions about social media marketing, focus on consumer marketing–even on occasions when B2b marketers make up the majority of the audience.
Great overview of B2B marketing
While the book centers on social media marketing, it is really an excellent overview of B2B marketing in the 21st century. In addition to a description of all things social, readers will also find sections on search and content strategy–and examples of how to combine them with conventional activities such as public relations, direct mail, and sales collateral creation for maximum impact. Perhaps the only innovations the authors don’t go into in detail are those of a physical nature (e.g. SaaS and mobile).
Tags: B2B marketers, better qualified leads, content strategy, crowdsourcing, integrated marketing campaign, marketing tactics, most effective marketing strategies, search, social community, social media marketing
Posted in Marketing strategy, social media, social media marketing | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010
This post is the second in a series about how B2B marketers can use digital marketing to help them make the most of their resources online and off. The series summarizes insights from an interview with Dave Wieneke, a Director of Digital Marketing who blogs at UsefulArts.us
The first post described how B2B marketers can set up digital signals to help them monitor marketing performance. This post describes how B2B marketers can use digital marketing to determine what they need to do to improve marketing performance.
Start with market segmentation
This is a preview of
Digital marketing: How B2B marketers can use it to improve their performance against goals
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Read the full post (834 words, 5 images, estimated 3:20 mins reading time)
Tags: B2B marketers, digital marketing, marketing campaigns, marketing performance, search, web analytics
Posted in Internet marketing, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Monday, October 25th, 2010
In a recent post, Laura Ramos observed that business-to-business marketers have long struggled to reach decision makers and measure marketing results. She observed that they may encounter difficulties because they don’t spend enough time understanding who their best customers are and what distinguishes them–noting that understanding buyer behavior is much more than conducting customer satisfaction surveys or publishing success stories.
I found her post timely. I’ve been struggling with articulating the very concepts that she relayed so fluently as I revise own website.
Shorter sales cycles depend on deep customer insights
This is a preview of
B2B marketers struggle to reach decision makers and measure marketing results
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Read the full post (704 words, 4 images, estimated 2:49 mins reading time)
Tags: attract business, B2B marketers, behavioral data, business-to-business marketers, buyer behavior, buying criteria, buying process, customer research, customer satisfaction surveys, high-tech marketing, increase revenues, lead generation campaigns, marketing collateral, marketing processes, marketing systems, product managers, product marketing managers, professional services marketing, web analytics
Posted in market intelligence, Marketing strategy, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Monday, June 21st, 2010
Paul Gillin, author of The New Influencers and a leading authority on B2B marketing, just published a draft of the first chapter of his upcoming book, Social Marketing to the Business Customer on his blog. He had me on the second page when he spelled out what I’ve always seen as the differences between B2B and B2C sales–but have never been able to articulate as clearly. 
The points Paul makes –about buyers’ focus on value, group decision-making, and sales cycle length especially resonate with me as someone who focuses on marketing IT products and professional services to corporations.
This is a preview of
How search and social media will shorten the B2B sales cycle.
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Read the full post (1085 words, 2 images, estimated 4:20 mins reading time)
Tags: B2B marketers, B2B marketing, B2B marketing consultant, B2B sales cycles, buying behavior, buying decision, communications, data collection, keywords, long sales cycles, Paul Gillin, pay per click, sales cycle length, search, shortening the sales cycle, social media, target audience, targeted communications, value
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Monday, May 3rd, 2010
A lot of what we read and hear about social media focuses on how businesses can use it to market to consumers (B2C). Yet, as a business-to-business marketing consultant, I’m far more interested in its B2B applications.
This is perhaps the main reason I was looking forward to Paul Gillin’s breakfast seminar at the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council last week. The other reason is that Paul has an uncanny ability to connect the dots in ways that add new meaning to any topic that he addresses.
B2B Marketing differs from B2C marketing
Tags: B2B marketers, B2B marketing, business-to-business marketing consultant, Facebook Like, Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council, Paul Gillin, sales cycle, social influence, social media, social media tactics, value
Posted in social media, social media marketing | 1 Comment »
Monday, May 11th, 2009
Although social media adoption rates are still relatively low—more and more companies are jumping in. And, as they do, we may see a dramatic shift in marketing spending patterns.
Today, most B2B companies are just dipping their toes in the social media waters. Some have launched blogs. Others are experimenting with Twitter. Still others are adopting a wait and see attitude.
Yet, if the conversation at a recent event hosted by the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council is any indication, most B2B marketers are ready to move forward. Right now, their biggest challenge is figuring out how to justify social media investments to skeptical management teams.
This is a preview of
Social media adoption: How will marketing spending patterns change?
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Read the full post (851 words, 1 image, estimated 3:24 mins reading time)
Tags: B2B marketers, marketing budgets, marketing investments, marketing spending, online marketing, online word of mouth marketing, social media, social media campaigns, social media marketing, social networks
Posted in social media marketing | 1 Comment »
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