Chris Koch

MARCH 19, 2010

I want to do something ambitious and I’m hoping you’ll help. Monitoring tools help determine how much impact these smart things are having on our target audiences. Search tools can help you mine that data. This is helpful during important periods like new offering launches or in the aftermath of a crisis. Gather research.

Social Media 100

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer Media 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 22, 2010

Old beliefs about the relative value of earned media vs. advertising are all over the map—and probably need to be revised in the age of social media. Here are some metrics, mostly for blogs, that help build engagement with customers and prospects. The PR cost is usually less and the value is usually larger, but by how much?

Social Media 100

Social Media ROI Lead Ranking RSS 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 12, 2010

I can’t help but think that as the different social media channels continue to evolve, customer intimacy is going to take a leap forward. But that doesn’t mean that the intimacy isn’t there. Our intimacy exists mostly through the content—we just have to find ways to surface it. Social media increases the frequency of those kinds of contacts.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Thought Leadership Work Management 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 30, 2010

I’m sure that there will be opportunities and reasons for B2B to advertise on these things eventually, but that’s the easy part. At ITSMA, we’re seeing four main reasons for doing it: Help. Is there a reason for you to offer whatever help you give to customers through mobile? How do we compete?

Mobile Marketing 100

Mobile Marketing Mobile Advertising Paid Search Agency Wiki 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

This week, Jeremiah Owyang published a great framework of things that marketers have to do to listen well—including a list of vendors who help marketers listen. The only disagreement I have with his framework is that it is about more than listening. And there’s good reason to be terrified.

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

This week, Jeremiah Owyang published a great framework of things that marketers have to do to listen well—including a list of vendors who help marketers listen. The only disagreement I have with his framework is that it is about more than listening. And there’s good reason to be terrified.

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 6, 2009

When I was at CIO, we despised the calendar process because it was the primary instrument that our salespeople used to demonstrate relevance with potential advertisers (and our competitors could see it). Marketers can replace offers with survey questions once in awhile to help build an understanding of timely issues to drive future content.

Planning 100

Planning B2B Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 6, 2009

When I was at CIO, we despised the calendar process because it was the primary instrument that our salespeople used to demonstrate relevance with potential advertisers (and our competitors could see it). Marketers can replace offers with survey questions once in awhile to help build an understanding of timely issues to drive future content.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Planning Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

MAY 21, 2010

For Facebook, it’s personal information that advertisers can use to target us. Reclaimprivacy.org is a small browser based program that practices a kind of benevolent vigilantism and helps you change your vulnerable privacy settings. It costs us money to produce this stuff, and therefore our consumers must pay a price.

Privacy 100

Privacy B2B Marketing Lead Ranking B2B 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 5, 2009

They expected Ford to respond immediately to their requests for help. Customers become highly sensitive to a company’s marketing and advertising messages in the aftermath of a crisis. But customers had not bought their Explorers from a tire manufacturer; they had bought them from Ford. Scope of response. Striking the right tone.

Paid Search Agency 100

Paid Search Agency Companies Work Management Ethics 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 18, 2009

The recent growth of permission-based groups on these sites helps a little bit, but so much of what gets posted on group pages is noise—blatant advertising, desperate job seeking—that it can be difficult for marketers to cut through all that crap and establish trusting relationships based solely on being in the same group as someone else.

Social Media 100

Social Media Viral Marketing Tools Media 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 18, 2009

The recent growth of permission-based groups on these sites helps a little bit, but so much of what gets posted on group pages is noise—blatant advertising, desperate job seeking—that it can be difficult for marketers to cut through all that crap and establish trusting relationships based solely on being in the same group as someone else.

Social Media 100

Social Media Viral Marketing Tools Media 100

Chris Koch

MAY 20, 2011

Creating an idea network helps demonstrate the importance of ideas to the organization. Marketers need to help create that culture in the company by facilitating the idea process. Primary and secondary research. Competitive intelligence. External: Customer councils. Collaboration with academics and analysts.

Social Media 100

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Media Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

MAY 15, 2012

They assume that salespeople can’t help them at that point. Sales and marketing need to work together to develop an idea network —a group of internal and external SMEs that can help develop and vet new ideas and put them into the hands of salespeople. And for the most part, they’re right.

FAQ 100

FAQ Custom Publishing B2B Sales Work Management 100

Chris Koch

JULY 22, 2011

We help ease them into the idea that they need our services and solutions to solve these problems so that the experience of spending all that money feels a little less like stepping off a cliff. But healthcare sure could use some help on the marketing front. Here are some examples: Educate the customer—or don’t. Anybody got any ideas?

Work Management 100

Work Management Marketing Management Social Media B2B Marketing 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 25, 2011

Collaboration—both internally and externally—will help embed idea development into the culture. Think about it: if employees aren’t comfortable sharing their ideas with each other, how will they ever be comfortable talking about them in social media?

Social Media 100

Social Media Organization Peer-to-peer SME 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 8, 2011

Here’s my take (I hope you will help me with your thoughts). We could all use some way to gauge our progress, especially in large, dispersed companies and marketing organizations. So let’s try to define what the ground level is so we know when we’ve established the base level of organizational social media skills.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Paid Search Agency PR 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 1, 2010

Ideas that educate customers and prospects about important business and technology issues and help them solve those issues—without selling. Another way is by picking themes to help guide your TL development. Smarter Planet helps SMEs at IBM focus. Marketing is helping develop offerings. Please add your thoughts!

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 3, 2010

Writing style guides can also help, but who has time to plow through them? Gaining a reputation as the first with the latest news in your chosen subject area increases your relevance among others in your network and helps attract new followers. But developing a social media voice is a more complicated proposition. Tweet This Post.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media B2B Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 3, 2010

Writing style guides can also help, but who has time to plow through them? Our helpful deeds in social media are often seen by many others who spread the help farther and enhance our reputation. But developing a social media voice is a more complicated proposition. But these policies are more like guardrails than signposts.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media B2B Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 20, 2009

Trade magazines are imploding as marketers continue to pull out of print advertising. Meanwhile, revenues from online advertising are doing little to stanch the bleeding. For example, when you add in digital revenues, total advertising revenues for the first half of 2009 are still down by 19%.

Social Media 100

Social Media Social Marketing B2B Marketing Work Management 100