Chris Koch

JUNE 11, 2010

The perceptions that marketers send nothing but junk leads to sales and fail to measure the impact of those leads on revenue have been hurting marketers’ relationships with salespeople—and the business—for at least a decade. But can we ever say that marketers will become the leading contributors of leads that wind up as closed business?

Lead Generation 100

Lead Generation Lead Scoring Lead Ranking Sales Qualified Leads 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 26, 2010

However, there is something important that happens at this stage: It is the point at which customers come to the realization of an important business need. The best way to do this is with thought leadership. This is where social media comes in. We have to generate demand before we can generate a lead. Tweet This Post.

Social Media 100

Social Media Lead Generation B2B Thought Leadership Generation 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 11, 2014

The example I’m about to give focuses on the fact that if you think of sports fans as business customers, they are the most loyal in the world. See if you agree about this post that I worked on with my colleague Rob O’Regan: “Professional sports teams have two problems that most businesses will recognize.

Loyalty 100

Loyalty Eye-Tracking Mobile Marketing Stats 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 26, 2010

If you’re in tune with your SMEs, then what interests you should interest them (at least from a business perspective—no need to go nuts and take up golf). Very few writers are able to get their best thoughts out on paper without some help. That’s why marketers have to step in and help out. Get ideas from customers. Tweet This Post.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership RSS Enterprise Management Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 7, 2009

When I covered CIOs for 13 years at CIO Magazine, I found that it was very difficult to generalize about the profession, beyond a handful of universal problems such as alignment with the business and the complexities and the voracious needs of the IT infrastructure. Business Strategist. And that has big implications for marketers.

Planning 100

Planning Segmentation Work Management Gartner 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 7, 2009

When I covered CIOs for 13 years at CIO Magazine, I found that it was very difficult to generalize about the profession, beyond a handful of universal problems such as alignment with the business and the complexities and the voracious needs of the IT infrastructure. Business Strategist. And that has big implications for marketers.

Planning 100

Planning Segmentation Work Management Gartner 100

Chris Koch

MAY 19, 2014

MakerBot , a manufacturer of desktop 3D printers priced at the level of a decent laptop, is the best known of companies producing a product that has already been raised to PC-level stature in terms of its potential impact on business and society.

Conference 100

Conference Education Viral Marketing Class 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 2, 2010

Hey, it was the best thing we came up with at the meeting, so why wouldn’t customers like it, too!?). Tags: Blogging Customer Relationships Social Media B2B marketing Business LinkedIn marketing Subject matter expert Technology Thought Leadership Twitter. Where are thepeople and the stories? Related articles by Zemanta.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership B2B Marketing Marketing Budget Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 17, 2010

The best example of this that I can think of is IBM’s Smarter Planet. Most CIOs wouldn’t mind being green, but their businesses evaluate them on cost and efficiency. Association in action: Smarter Planet. I’m guessing that the term came from an ad agency. What do you think? Tweet This Post.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Advertising Agencies Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 12, 2010

PR schedules interviews between the subject matter experts and the influencers and tries to influence the interaction to put the company and its offerings in the best light. Make sure they have business profiles on the different networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.). Gatekeeper. Encourage them to blog.

PR 100

PR Peer-to-peer Press Public Relations 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 12, 2010

Rooted in Michael Porter’s timeless work in business strategy, Treacy and Wiersema took it a step further with their three “value disciplines.”. We know that in B2B, customers and prospects respond best to ideas, news, research, and how-to—not sales pitches. We can do it with content. Tweet This Post.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Thought Leadership Work Management 100

Chris Koch

MAY 1, 2009

In B2B, both marketers and salespeople know the value of learning about customers’ business issues and needs. Salespeople are best equipped and most motivated to understand the “now” of the account: what has already been sold to customers and what they are most likely to buy next. And both know how to gain that understanding.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Cross-Selling B2B Sales Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 21, 2011

At ITSMA , we’ve been busy preparing for our annual State of the Marketing Profession briefing next Tuesday. And what’s worse, when asked why they had corporate blogs, more than 50% said it’s the cost of doing business. All of the best blogs are personal. But we don’t like to just parrot the numbers from the survey.

Social Media 100

Social Media Budget Programs Paper Stats 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 31, 2014

From a business perspective the question becomes, what should the entertainment industry do with video moments that capture the history and personalities of their stars like this. Right now, the practice is to simply excerpt bits from their shows in “best of” compilations and market them. Should the Industry Try to Capitalize on It?

Wikipedia 100

Wikipedia Youtube Profiling Video Marketing 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 25, 2011

Some companies have companywide competitions for the best ideas or the best white paper. One company has created an internal portal where project members submit ideas that are vetted and voted on by the project customers. The winning ideas are implemented. Make it competitive. This process is usually facilitated by marketing.

Social Media 100

Social Media Organization Peer-to-peer SME 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. People need to know that taking personal responsibility for their actions is the best guideline of all. The best retort to criticism is factual evidence to the contrary.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Guidelines B2B 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 10, 2009

The most famous business incarnation of this model is the Harvard Business Review, which began publishing in 1922. Even in industries with low information intensity in their products—coin-operation laundry franchises, for example—there was a trade magazine offering information about how to improve business practices.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer Work Management 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 26, 2009

You may have to adopt a more split business personality (and do more work). But his personal presence in social media is based on sharing best practices in B2B and social media generally—there’s nary a mention of his company or his day job. One of the best ways to start is with RSS. Pick an RSS tool.

Social Media 100

Social Media Social Marketing B2B Marketing Personalization 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 17, 2009

But of course, true to Michael Porter and Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema’s principle of business strategy: companies only do one thing really well while trying to maintain parity with competitors on the things they don’t. Apple creates great products.

Marketing & Strategy 100

Marketing & Strategy Paid Search Agency Tagging Positioning 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 23, 2011

The best truly “social” interactions I see on Twitter are organized chats. Rarely do I see people who believe that the tweet alone is content to be learned from (except those annoying people who think quotes from famous people are worth tweeting). So I treat Twitter like a reporter rather than a cocktail party host.

Twitter 100

Twitter Broadcasting Social Media Advertising Mediums 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 23, 2011

The best truly “social” interactions I see on Twitter are organized chats. Rarely do I see people who believe that the tweet alone is content to be learned from (except those annoying people who think quotes from famous people are worth tweeting). So I treat Twitter like a reporter rather than a cocktail party host.

Twitter 100

Twitter Broadcasting Social Media B2B Marketing 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 16, 2011

The “voluntary policing” being done by the ad industry today online is at best an uneasy truce with an internet public not yet bothered enough, too lazy, or too uniformed to do anything about shutting off the cookie oven for good. We keep hearing that at some point web users may truly be able to stop you from learning anything about them.

B2B 100

B2B Privacy Click Rate Internet Marketing 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 16, 2011

The “voluntary policing” being done by the ad industry today online is at best an uneasy truce with an internet public not yet bothered enough, too lazy, or too uniformed to do anything about shutting off the cookie oven for good. We keep hearing that at some point web users may truly be able to stop you from learning anything about them.

B2B 100

B2B Privacy Click Rate Internet Marketing 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. You’re just warming up to social media campaigns because you work for ITSMA and these are the companies who won your contest. I’m not a slut, I’m a snob. Actually, I’m not a slut. I’m more of a snob.

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. You’re just warming up to social media campaigns because you work for ITSMA and these are the companies who won your contest. I’m not a slut, I’m a snob. Actually, I’m not a slut. I’m more of a snob.

Social Media 100

Social Media Campaigns B2B Thought Leadership Media 100

Chris Koch

MAY 7, 2010

The smooth contours and the shimmering black glass bezels make the devices look more like something out of a Swarovski store than a Best Buy. Now of course you know that the iPhone and iPad are popular because of the way they look. They bring out our primitive attractions to the bright and shiny.

Mobile Marketing 100

Mobile Marketing Wikipedia Communities B2B Marketing 100

Chris Koch

JULY 10, 2009

In my experience, IT prospects tend to lie about their titles and their level of interest because they’re afraid that they won’t get the best content or treatment if they admit that they’re trapped on the help desk instead of wielding that big stick of decision-making. Would you like to subscribe to content about this business issue?

Web 2.0 100

Web 2.0 B2B Thought Leadership Ideal Customer Profiles Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 16, 2009

You can seek out the best thinkers in marketing—people that you’ve paid money to go see at conferences—and listen to what they have to say anytime, for free. Twitter for business fills a learning gap that blogging used to fill but from which most good blogs graduated from early on: linking. Think about it. Nobody knows but me.

Twitter 100

Twitter Web 2.0 Social Media Communities 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. My feeling is that it is apt, because the best model we have for doing this is publishing—i.e., What social media vehicles are best for promoting B2B thought leadership?

Thought Leadership 100

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

Chris Koch

MARCH 12, 2012

For about 20 years (sad to say I was a journalist for even longer than that) it seemed that every white paper that crossed my desk began with some variant of this sentence: “As the world becomes more global and interconnected, businesses need a way to see through the complexity. I heard six: Mobility changes business models.

Enterprise Management 100

Enterprise Management Lock-In Marketing Management Paper 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 3, 2010

The best social media voices have a clear understanding of what it feels like to stand in their audiences’ shoes. As my friend Laura Nicholas points out, the best social media voices try to inspire others to action. Remember that it’s as easy to disconnect from people in social media as it is to connect with them. Empathetic.

Social Media 100

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

Chris Koch

JULY 29, 2011

The article itself is one of the best examples of thought leadership I have ever read. Maybe if we had all gone to the upper two percent of business grad schools like the folks at McKinsey we would have known better. A textbook example of pragmatic thought leadership. It is bold, clear, authoritative, and based on solid research.

Social Media 100

Social Media Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency Companies 100