Chris Koch

MAY 21, 2010

I’m still looking to pin down incontrovertible evidence of this, but anecdotally I hear from people that when they get rid of qual forms for their content the amount of engagement increases exponentially. of the time any link that you put in a tweet is going to lead to accessible content. come at a price.

Privacy 100

Privacy B2B Marketing Lead Ranking B2B 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 26, 2010

The number of B2B buyers who are ready to buy as soon as they engage with our marketing is small—and social media will make it even smaller. We need a content engine capable of gaining the attention and respect of people who have never heard of us before. We need to create that content. What do you think? Tweet This Post.

Social Media 100

Social Media Lead Generation B2B Thought Leadership Generation 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 19, 2010

I’d like to create a guide for how to use social media in B2B that does not involve talking about the specific tools—as least not in the top line. Social media are repositories for discussions and content on every possible topic. B2B buyers value peer connections above all else. Image by HubSpot via Flickr. Gather research.

Social Media 100

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

Chris Koch

AUGUST 16, 2011

Obviously, this is less of an issue in B2B than B2C. Cookies help us learn more about our website visitors, but you won’t learn nearly as much about the spending patterns of B2B executives through web cookies as you do with B2C buyers. Privacy is a concern in B2B, too. It may seem facile, but social media are the answer.

B2B 100

B2B Privacy Click Rate Internet Marketing 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 16, 2011

Obviously, this is less of an issue in B2B than B2C. Cookies help us learn more about our website visitors, but you won’t learn nearly as much about the spending patterns of B2B executives through web cookies as you do with B2C buyers. Privacy is a concern in B2B, too. It may seem facile, but social media are the answer.

B2B 100

B2B Privacy Click Rate Internet Marketing 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 29, 2010

Okay, so it’s difficult to actually pull money out of buyers for your marketing content (though there are rare exceptions: McKinsey has been doing it for years with the McKinsey Quarterly). Yet while generally we can’t put a price tag on our content, we do charge for it. Trouble is, we take a one-price-for all approach to our content.

Lead Ranking 100

Lead Ranking Lead Scoring B2B Thought Leadership Mobile Advertising 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 29, 2010

Okay, so it’s difficult to actually pull money out of buyers for your marketing content (though there are rare exceptions: McKinsey has been doing it for years with the McKinsey Quarterly). Yet while generally we can’t put a price tag on our content, we do charge for it. Trouble is, we take a one-price-for all approach to our content.

Lead Ranking 100

Lead Ranking Lead Scoring B2B Thought Leadership Mobile Advertising 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 24, 2009

Here are some recommendations based on a cross-section of social media policies from B2B companies, including social media policy examples from some leading B2B companies. Employees should be encouraged to become part of the community by doing research and linking to other relevant content—not just their own. Tweet This Post.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Guidelines B2B 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 26, 2009

My job is to learn about how to become a better B2B marketer and to share what I learn with others. To get better, you should think of yourself as part of the emerging guild of B2B marketers in social media. I think of Paul Dunay as one of the model citizens of this online B2B guild. B2B Marketing POSTs by Laura Ramos.

Social Media 100

Social Media Social Marketing B2B Marketing Personalization 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

Despite all the breathless hype about social media these days, what I hear most from B2B marketers is frustration. This is why every B2B marketing leader needs a social media participation strategy even if he or she does not intend to actively market through social media. I think we need to parse that decision more. What do you think?

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

Despite all the breathless hype about social media these days, what I hear most from B2B marketers is frustration. This is why every B2B marketing leader needs a social media participation strategy even if he or she does not intend to actively market through social media. I think we need to parse that decision more. What do you think?

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 7, 2012

I agree (journalism’s future will be determined by its ability to create a business model that pays better than the current one: giving away content for free and charging way too little for ads), but I think he missed the more important disruptive power that platforms like BrandVoice really do have: to disintermediate traditional marketing.

Disintermediation 100

Disintermediation B2B Marketing Marketing Management Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 11, 2009

And who can resist the river of content that moves before your eyes? For B2B marketers, this means that video and interactivity are something we need to be thinking about and doing now. But video case studies and interactive product demos—even for B2B services— are going to become more popular on mobile devices.

Mobile Marketing 100

Mobile Marketing B2B Marketing B2B Storytelling 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 23, 2011

For these reasons, pundits say that Twitter isn’t much use for reaching B2B customers. These days, my audience is B2B marketers and my goal is to help you learn. I have a search column in TweetDeck for “B2B.” 99% of the time, they’re sharing links to content—blogs, research papers, news stories, etc.—that

Twitter 100

Twitter Broadcasting Social Media Opinions 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 23, 2011

For these reasons, pundits say that Twitter isn’t much use for reaching B2B customers. These days, my audience is B2B marketers and my goal is to help you learn. I have a search column in TweetDeck for “B2B.” 99% of the time, they’re sharing links to content—blogs, research papers, news stories, etc.—that

Twitter 100

Twitter Broadcasting Social Media B2B Marketing 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 7, 2011

This week I was asked to speak on a panel about social media to a group of B2B marketers in financial services. They are more likely to encounter our content through search than through the social media channels themselves. Social doesn’t happen in B2B without a culture change. But you can’t tweet a 50%-off coupon in B2B.

Social Media 100

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

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 7, 2011

This week I was asked to speak on a panel about social media to a group of B2B marketers in financial services. They are more likely to encounter our content through search than through the social media channels themselves. Social doesn’t happen in B2B without a culture change. But you can’t tweet a 50%-off coupon in B2B.

Social Media 100

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

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

I’ve been working with my colleagues at ITSMA on another survey on social media for B2B marketers that I hope you’ll take by going here. B2B marketing lays the path to a sales discussion and supports relationships with existing customers. As we put together the questions, we struggled with the issue of social media strategy.

Social Media 100

Social Media Marketing & Strategy Marketing Strategy B2B Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 14, 2011

I’ve also done research asking B2B marketers how they engage and how they educate their employees and SMEs to engage. What a ridiculous notion, that someone’s content is worth tweeting every time. I don’t know anyone whose content I would recommend to my followers every time (and I have 135 feeds I follow in Google reader).

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Twitter Social Networks 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 14, 2011

I’ve also done research asking B2B marketers how they engage and how they educate their employees and SMEs to engage. What a ridiculous notion, that someone’s content is worth tweeting every time. I don’t know anyone whose content I would recommend to my followers every time (and I have 135 feeds I follow in Google reader).

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Social Networks Twitter 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 2, 2011

I’m a content guy and I think thought leadership is the best way to build nurturing relationships with contacts in B2B marketing. Marketing automation vendor Eloqua released a SlideShare entitled 10 ways to “solve” Facebook for B2B. 4 Reasons Why Facebook Stinks for B2B Marketing (christopherakoch.com). Related articles.

Social Media 100

Social Media Campaigns B2B Thought Leadership Media 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 2, 2011

I’m a content guy and I think thought leadership is the best way to build nurturing relationships with contacts in B2B marketing. Marketing automation vendor Eloqua released a SlideShare entitled 10 ways to “solve” Facebook for B2B. 4 Reasons Why Facebook Stinks for B2B Marketing (christopherakoch.com). Related articles.

Social Media 100

Social Media Campaigns B2B Thought Leadership Media 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 11, 2011

In B2B marketing, we’ve never been given the right to tell customers what to think, much less the budgets to pound a tagline into their minds. I recently did a search on some well-known B2B technology brands and compiled their taglines in the list below. Not that the defenses were much more than Maginot Lines to begin with.

Social Marketing 100

Social Marketing Tactics B2B Thought Leadership Enterprise Management 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 11, 2011

In B2B marketing, we’ve never been given the right to tell customers what to think, much less the budgets to pound a tagline into their minds. I recently did a search on some well-known B2B technology brands and compiled their taglines in the list below. Not that the defenses were much more than Maginot Lines to begin with.

Social Marketing 100

Social Marketing Tactics B2B Thought Leadership Enterprise Management 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 22, 2010

We should care more about lead management automation in B2B marketing. This is where we as marketers need to provide more content—but not sales content. This content must be like what the press used to provide, objective, idea-based, and educational—not selling. No, there’s something bigger going on here. Tweet This Post.

Lead Management 100

Lead Management Marketing Management Automation Marketing Automation Services 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 17, 2010

Marketers, meanwhile, didn’t have a wall, so they filled their content with self-aggrandizing references to their own products and services that pissed off readers and sent them to other sources for advice. And they’re linking this content to their social media management strategies. What’s the point? Idea marketing as checklist.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Advertising Agencies Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

JULY 10, 2009

Now that may be due in part to the fact that most B2B marketers have only recently begun using Web 2.0 It is a natural way to drive traffic back to your site for registration—as long as you have great content to offer. Sync your content to the stages of the buying process. In our recent Web 2.0 for at least that long.

Web 2.0 100

Web 2.0 B2B Thought Leadership Ideal Customer Profiles Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 4, 2012

I won’t be focusing on B2B marketing in the broadest sense anymore; I’ll be narrowing things to idea marketing (and the role that social media play in it). I also dislike another term that seems to be gaining ground these days: content marketing. Content” sounds so achingly dull and bland. What do you think?

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Social Media Twitter 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 26, 2010

One of the biggest challenges for B2B social media marketers isn’t creating content, it’s helping others create content. Creating content such as blogs is hard. Customer research can provide tons of fodder for content, but you can’t just dump it on SMEs unfiltered. Hire a content director. It’s no surprise.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership RSS Enterprise Management Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 23, 2012

If you’re a corporate marketer like me, no doubt you’ve been put in the situation I faced this week: you have a white paper that an external content person created for the company and now you need to make that content social. ITSMA research shows that buyers want the whole menu of content—not just a white paper here or a video there.

Paper 100

Paper Social Media Social Marketing B2B Marketing 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 30, 2010

I’m going to be moderating a panel on this question (among others) at next week’s MarketingProfs’ B2B Forum in Boston. I’m sure that there will be opportunities and reasons for B2B to advertise on these things eventually, but that’s the easy part. I think that’s how we have to view mobile apps for B2B marketing.

Mobile Marketing 100

Mobile Marketing Mobile Advertising Paid Search Agency Wiki 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 8, 2010

There is only one objective in social media and it is common across all companies—even across the infamous divide between B2B and B2C: Create learning networks. And learning is integral to buying—especially in B2B. That means social media are extensions of our content development and dissemination processes. What do you think?

Social Media 100

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership Media 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 6, 2009

But this trend has an unintended side effect: it exposes our content development processes (or lack thereof). We accomplish this feat through content. And if our nurturing metric is going to improve over time, so must our content. By improve I mostly mean that we need to make the content more and more relevant to target buyers.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Planning Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

JULY 31, 2009

Create content that is tied to (and signals) the different stages of the buying process. As we in B2B focus more and more on trying to pull in prospects through thought leadership, we need to understand that our life’s blood is the Epiphany Stage of the buying process. What would you add to this list?

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency Work Management B2B Sales 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 21, 2009

Recently, I was asked by a former ITSMA client to help put together a plan for a thought leadership program for a B2B technology company that sells both products and services. If those pieces are missing, thought leadership will be left to marketing, where it will either mutate into thinly veiled sales content or die out altogether.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Network Marketing B2B Sales 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 16, 2009

Earlier this year I surveyed B2B marketers about their approaches to corporate blogging. These marketers take a direct role in finding and supporting internal bloggers and in helping them develop content. Of course, a good blogger can break through that suspicion with content that is interesting, unbiased and altruistic.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Blogger Thought Leadership Word of Mouth 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 24, 2010

We all know how sales enablement got started in B2B. So my question is, now that the center of gravity is shifting from content (brochures, specification sheets, etc.) So my question is, now that the center of gravity is shifting from content (brochures, specification sheets, etc.) Sales enablement used to mean brochures.

Peer-to-peer 100

Peer-to-peer Wiki Marketing Management Internet Marketing 100