Chris Koch

MARCH 4, 2011

This cartoon making the rounds online captures the frustration journalists have with their online plight--and reveals the opportunity B2B marketers have to fill the content gap. Marketers always struggle with what to do next. B2B buyers are tired of marketing, but they’re not tired of ideas. Try all of them.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Advertising Agencies B2B Marketing Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 13, 2010

But we’re in the era of social media now, so there are breadcrumbs in the forest that lead us to a fuller explanation of who Slater is and why he did what he did. Following the trail of bread crumbs leads us to a caring, thoughtful person. So what can we take away from all this as B2B marketing professionals?

Social Media 100

Social Media Media SME B2B 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 24, 2009

The best documents don’t just tell employees what not to do; they also tell them what they should be doing to further the marketing goals of the company. 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.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Guidelines B2B 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 26, 2009

When I despair at ever mastering all the social media tools that exist out there, I remind myself (as I hope you will) that at its core social media is all about communication and that marketers are all expert communicators. My job is to learn about how to become a better B2B marketer and to share what I learn with others.

Social Media 100

Social Media Social Marketing B2B Marketing Personalization 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

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. It was great getting the perspective of marketers outside of technology. Social doesn’t happen in B2B without a culture change. Marketers can handle all that stuff. Marketing can’t do that on its own.

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. It was great getting the perspective of marketers outside of technology. Social doesn’t happen in B2B without a culture change. Marketers can handle all that stuff. Marketing can’t do that on its own.

Social Media 100

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Media Peer-to-peer 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. That’s why lead management automation is important. What is stopping your company from creating an automated lead management process? What do you think?

Lead Management 100

Lead Management Marketing Management Automation Marketing Automation Services 100

Chris Koch

JULY 10, 2009

As social media becomes more prevalent in marketing, we’re going to have to rethink how we gather information from prospects. We’re starting to see social media have a positive impact on driving traffic to websites and on lead generation. Increased lead generation” was farther down the list—24% are seeing it.

Web 2.0 100

Web 2.0 B2B Thought Leadership Ideal Customer Profiles Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

JULY 31, 2009

It’s time to declare marketing metrics a failure once and for all. It’s difficult to parse out the contribution that marketing makes to a sale and it’s even more difficult to get salespeople to spend the time figuring out/checking the box/giving credit in the quest to determine whether marketing played a role in making the sale.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency Work Management B2B Sales 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). Make no mistake; buyers understand the prices behind marketing content. Image via Wikipedia. We’re the ones who don’t pay enough attention to it.

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). Make no mistake; buyers understand the prices behind marketing content. Image via Wikipedia. We’re the ones who don’t pay enough attention to it.

Lead Ranking 100

Lead Ranking Lead Scoring B2B Thought Leadership Mobile Advertising 100

Chris Koch

JULY 31, 2009

It’s time to declare marketing metrics a failure once and for all. It’s difficult to parse out the contribution that marketing makes to a sale and it’s even more difficult to get salespeople to spend the time figuring out/checking the box/giving credit in the quest to determine whether marketing played a role in making the sale.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency Work Management B2B Sales 100

Chris Koch

JULY 24, 2009

I’ve been working on a report for ITSMA clients this week about analytics and it got me thinking about the proverbial bigger picture of B2B marketing. We know from our research that we in marketing don’t do much with analytics—i.e., The marketing funnel helps focus attention on a number of important issues: Qualify leads.

Lead Qualification 100

Lead Qualification Marketing Automation Services Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 100

Chris Koch

JULY 24, 2009

I’ve been working on a report for ITSMA clients this week about analytics and it got me thinking about the proverbial bigger picture of B2B marketing. We know from our research that we in marketing don’t do much with analytics—i.e., The marketing funnel helps focus attention on a number of important issues: Qualify leads.

Top of Funnel 100

Top of Funnel Lead Scoring Lead Ranking Marketing Automation Services 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. The trust leads to a more personal relationship and hopefully, a purchase.

Social Media 100

Social Media Marketing Strategy Marketing & Strategy B2B Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 11, 2011

There’s lots of talk out there these days about the need for a technology guru within the B2B marketing department. Maybe I’m splitting hairs here, but I wonder about the long-term need for a marketing technologist. In the short term, I think marketing has a lot of catching up to do in terms of technology.

Analytics 100

Analytics Paid Search Agency Marketing Management Loyalty 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 17, 2010

All of our talk about marketers becoming publishers is incomplete. 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. Marketing through association. Let me explain.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Advertising Agencies Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 5, 2010

And they both lead to content that benefits from being mobile. Creating a mobile application that leads to static content on a website isn’t going to build much interest or loyalty because there’s no real urgency to connect. Why B2B marketing will become more visual, vocal, and mobile (christopherakoch.com).

Wiki 100

Wiki Urgency Marketing Mobile Marketing Content 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 2, 2011

If you had asked me a few years ago whether the traditional marketing campaign had any place in social media I would have scoffed. Just more evidence of marketing’s old-fashioned, ADHD-driven, love-’em-and-leave-’em approach. These campaigns were the winners of this year’s ITSMA Marketing Excellence Awards. I still believe that.

Social Media 100

Social Media Campaigns B2B Thought Leadership Media 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 2, 2011

If you had asked me a few years ago whether the traditional marketing campaign had any place in social media I would have scoffed. Just more evidence of marketing’s old-fashioned, ADHD-driven, love-’em-and-leave-’em approach. These campaigns were the winners of this year’s ITSMA Marketing Excellence Awards. I still believe that.

Social Media 100

Social Media Campaigns B2B Thought Leadership Media 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. Survey internal sales and marketing staff, customers, target markets, and influencers to determine what they are looking for.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Network Marketing B2B Sales 100

Chris Koch

MAY 1, 2009

Right now, it seems that the gap between sales and marketing is mostly papered over with technology. For example, the trend towards creating a closed-loop lead generation and nurturing process between marketing and sales is a positive step, but it seems like a bridge across the chasm rather than a true route to collaboration.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Cross-Selling B2B Sales Thought Leadership 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. Toyota’s market share wasn’t built by Toyota’s marketing; it was built by Consumer Reports. Tweet This Post.

Social Media 100

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership Media 100

Chris Koch

JULY 22, 2011

I realized that I really have become one of you marketing types. A marketing geek. (I All of which is a lead-in to this week’s entry, which is what we as B2B marketers can learn from health-care marketing. Healthcare marketing is awful, practically non-existent. Market your strengths.

Work Management 100

Work Management Marketing Management Social Media B2B Marketing 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 6, 2009

One of the great trends were seeing at ITSMA is increased automation of the lead process. It’s great because the software acts as a battering ram for alignment between marketing and sales. That metric is going to be critically important as we automate the lead process because nurturing is marketing’s special sauce.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Planning Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency 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. Survey internal sales and marketing staff, customers, target markets, and influencers to determine what they are looking for.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Network Marketing Paper 100

Chris Koch

JULY 16, 2010

I’ve been reading through applications for ITSMA’s Marketing Excellence Awards this week and I have been blown away by the quality of innovation and creativity that’s going on out there among our members (and other B2B companies)—I mean, I’m talking about a quantum leap over what I’ve seen in the three years that I’ve been mingling with these folks.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer Wikipedia 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 16, 2010

Marketing owns social media management. In our survey, we asked, “In your company, is marketing the catalyst for social media being used by others in the company (product development, HR, etc.)?” Will social become a silo within marketing? This has big implications for how we organize marketing. That’s right.

Social Media 100

Social Media Work Management Marketing Management Social Marketing 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 6, 2009

One of the great trends were seeing at ITSMA is increased automation of the lead process. It’s great because the software acts as a battering ram for alignment between marketing and sales. That metric is going to be critically important as we automate the lead process because nurturing is marketing’s special sauce.

Planning 100

Planning B2B Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 25, 2011

I confirmed something I’ve been hearing in my research on idea marketing over the past month: idea marketing requires a deep commitment not just from marketing but from the entire organization. This process is usually facilitated by marketing. Eric Wittlake makes this point in a blog post this week and I heartily agree.

Social Media 100

Social Media Organization Peer-to-peer SME 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 15, 2010

We needed to hear from marketers who were out there day-to-day listening to CIOs’ problems and aspirations. Back then what marketers had to say was all about their offerings. Marketers and salespeople didn’t have to do much coaxing to get CIOs to buy, so why get complicated? But mostly we were. And why not? And why not?

Social Media 100

Social Media Work Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services 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. The blogs are an integrated part of the corporate marketing strategy and are usually hosted on the corporate website.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Blogger Thought Leadership Word of Mouth 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 9, 2010

Here are a few to consider: Lead a niche. A former colleague that I really admire managed to mention his 30 year experience in marketing into the first minute of conversation with anyone new. Tags: Blogging B2B marketing Blog LinkedIn marketing Social Media social media management Subject matter expert.

SME 100

SME Aggregators Blogger Social Media 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 25, 2009

I helped host an ITSMA round table this week and a near universal complaint from our B2B technology clients was how difficult it is to launch new services in a fast, efficient way. One client summed it up by saying that there are two points of resistance in the process of bringing new things to market. Stop relying on human nature.

Research 100

Research Service Product Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 5, 2010

The pressures on the guard dogs lead to a lot of problems: The emphasis is on risk avoidance. In B2B, that’s not going to build relationships with customers. Much like IT people, they don’t hear much from anyone inside their companies unless something goes wrong. Then they get plenty of the wrong kinds of attention. Placement PR.

PR 100

PR Press Paid Search Agency Lead Ranking 100

Chris Koch

MAY 15, 2009

sessions are with marketers from big B2B technology companies and I often experience deep cynicism, even anger, from people who question whether web 2.0 has any value for marketing. taking off generally, and ITSMA research showing increased uptake by their peers in B2B. Most of my web 2.0 But it doesn’t sink in.

Web 2.0 100

Web 2.0 Peer-to-peer Paid Search Agency Stats 100