Posts Tagged ‘B2B Marketing’
10 Minutes to Better B2B Marketing
I was attending a fitness class at my health club this past weekend and the instructor was talking about how full the club was in early January and how many of the people were “New Year’s resolution” exercisers who would probably be absent within a month. He said that many people have noble intentions and set major goals, but they take an approach bound for failure, by overdoing it in the early stages – for example, exercising every day for
A Dozen B2B Marketing Mantras for 2012
The Fusion Marketing Partners team got together last week to do our year end recap and strategize plans for 2012. The bottom line is that we had a good year. As part of the discussion, we talked about some guiding principles (mantras) for how we will conduct business in 2012. Here is a sampling that might give you some ideas for improvement in the coming year.
Focus on the three marketing measurements that probably matter most to your organization: boosting awareness, generating leads
Attention to “Detale” is Crucial in B2B Marketing
With apologies to my excellent English teachers over the years, the headline of this post illustrates why attention to detail is so important in marketing. All of us make mistakes, and I have made many. But keep in mind the old carpenter’s expression, “It is better to measure twice and cut once.” Likewise, it is always better to prevent mistakes in the first place, as opposed to correcting them after the fact. We practice this at Fusion Marketing Partners and
Does Your Marketing Produce Accolades or Action?
MCI was a powerful company in the 1990s. And while MCI was known for producing very cool advertising – unfortunately, the business results never seemed to match the messaging “creativity.” This is just one example – how about the many $1 million plus Super Bowl ads that have produced a lot of attention but virtually no results. Some of these advertisers were start-up companies that wasted their entire promotional budgets on just one advertisement. Clever yes… effective, no. Good marketing…hardly.
Perhaps the
How Marketing Can Double the Effectiveness of Your Sales Force
I was talking to a former colleague yesterday and she made the claim that as a marketer, she had no control over the sales process and little or any impact on revenue. Regardless of whether this is true at her particular company, B2B marketers should (and do) have substantial impact on sales revenue. In fact, there are many instances where upgrading the marketing function can bring a much larger boost to the top line than hiring more sales people.
To put this
How to “Engineer” a Marketing Fiasco
Here’s the all-too-common scenario: A team of highly skilled engineers rolls out a product that passes beta and actually starts to get some traction (usually through networking with people they already know). Encouraged by their first few orders, the company promotes those engineers or product developers to fill the marketing and sales roles. Who better to sell the product than the person who built it? Besides, the product is so good, it will sell itself, right?
We have seen a few companies
B2B Marketing Mottos to Avoid
Let’s call these the Dirty Dozen – 12 things you don’t want to say (or have said) about your marketing operation. Over my long career in B2B marketing I have heard a variation of all of the following:
We are clueless but hope to have an answer someday.
Buy from us because we really need the money.
My job is on the line. Can you purchase today instead of next quarter?
Who needs leads when you have a phone book?
Yes, our website is lousy,
Five Questions Every B2B Marketer Needs to Ask – by Christopher Ryan
B2B Marketing is a tricky business with a lot of moving parts. To do it right, you need the answers to the appropriate questions. Here are five to get you started:
Is what you offer a commodity or a differentiated product or service? This is a critical question because it will determine how you must market to be successful. A differentiated product or service has advantages, but it must usually contend with a much smaller market niche. By contrast, a commodity
A Dose of Reality in B2B Marketing – by Christopher Ryan
Napoleon once remarked, “A general should consider himself successful if half of what he plans comes to pass.” This is not to say that you shouldn’t carefully plan. But the fact is that things don’t always turn out the way you plan (just ask Napoleon about a place called Waterloo). For example, the list is staler than you thought. The webinar topic is not as interesting. The offer is not as compelling. Your vendor misses the mailing or email date.
Don’t Major in the Minors of B2B Marketing – by Chris Ryan
One of the worst ways to spend your day as a B2B marketer is to “major in the minors.” By this, I mean spending your time on activities that have little or no impact on results.
As I write this, it is snowy in Colorado. There are three trucks in our company’s parking lot, scraping snow and sanding the pavement. They have been going at their business for at least an hour and I am impressed by how clean (and sandy)
