Chris Koch

JANUARY 8, 2010

Whether it’s blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, or private communities that we build ourselves, the common thread is that by focusing on learning we build and retain buyers’ interest. Your internal learning network should integrate with the ones you want to build for customers. If learning is the objective, the rest falls into place.

Social Media 100

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership Media 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 16, 2009

It can takes years to build enough word-of-mouth to build a marketing worthy audience for a blog. Surrounding the blog with links to other sections of the site gives the blog credibility and helps build interest. Offsite disadvantages: Building traffic takes longer. Building up that foundation of content takes time.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Blogger Thought Leadership Word of Mouth 100

Chris Koch

JULY 28, 2010

An interesting article this week, Brand Building, Beyond Marketing, essentially argues that the issue of brand has gotten beyond the control of marketing and is increasingly embodied in the actions of individual employees. Individuals can afford to play it safe if they want to build and keep their audiences.

Blogger 100

Blogger Wikipedia Work Management Social Media 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 19, 2010

Build influence by answering questions. By pushing SMEs to engage with the target audience in these ways, you help them build up trust and loyalty among customers and prospects. By pushing SMEs to engage with the target audience in these ways, you help them build up trust and loyalty among customers and prospects.

Social Media 100

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

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 12, 2010

Twitter’s viral relationship model means that your subject matter experts can build up their networks of influence much faster than through a press release. In France, the concierge is a combination building superintendent and busybody. Facilitation.

PR 100

PR Peer-to-peer Press Public Relations 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 12, 2010

These are companies that go out of their way to build close customer relationships. They are focused on lifetime customer value and are willing to incur short-term costs in order to build long-term loyalty and satisfaction—Nordstrom and Amex are a couple of B2C examples. Operational excellence.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Thought Leadership Work Management 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 18, 2009

Then you need to get those people’s permission to build your network further. And the opportunity for real relationship building—which is what social media is supposed to be all about—in this model is limited. And the viral model acts as a nice front end for building a deeper relationship through the permission model.

Social Media 100

Social Media Viral Marketing Tools Media 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 18, 2009

Then you need to get those people’s permission to build your network further. And the opportunity for real relationship building—which is what social media is supposed to be all about—in this model is limited. And the viral model acts as a nice front end for building a deeper relationship through the permission model.

Social Media 100

Social Media Viral Marketing Tools Media 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 9, 2010

SMEs with deep expertise in a particular niche can build a strong and loyal following—if not necessarily huge blog traffic. Being the first with the latest news builds authority. Show your age. The voice of experience is powerful. Have the data.

SME 100

SME Aggregators Blogger Social Media 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 22, 2010

Here are some metrics, mostly for blogs, that help build engagement with customers and prospects. Owning” a keyword term in Google searches is nice, but building traffic to your blog through references on other blogs and websites is the key to sustained, long-term growth. Build cross-referencing across social media tools.

Social Media 100

Social Media ROI Lead Ranking RSS 100

Chris Koch

MAY 1, 2009

They try to do it with golf games or off-site team-building exercises. Marketers can use those contacts to start building a larger context—the business issues that cross functional, corporate, and vertical boundaries. Few salespeople or marketers feel qualified—or interested—in crossing over to the other side. Sharing what works.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Cross-Selling B2B Sales Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 21, 2011

We spend millions to build brands, why do we want to let individuals horn in on the action with their own brands? Marketing needs to start paying as much attention to building individual brands as corporate brands. Now, I can already sense marketers and PR people cringing. This is not how it usually works.

Social Media 100

Social Media Budget Programs Paper Stats 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 23, 2011

For example, just when I was lamenting having to do over all the work I’ve done to build up a Twitter community with some true interaction and conversation in G+, along comes a browser extension called SGPlus that lets you post on G+ and share it across Twitter and Facebook at the same time.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Social Networks B2B Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 23, 2011

For example, just when I was lamenting having to do over all the work I’ve done to build up a Twitter community with some true interaction and conversation in G+, along comes a browser extension called SGPlus that lets you post on G+ and share it across Twitter and Facebook at the same time.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Social Networks B2B Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 16, 2010

And we have to use other tactics that, in and of themselves, build trust and relationships with buyers. Such as using online communities and social media to build up interest and discussion about our traditional live events both up to, during, and after those events. That’s where social media comes in.

Social Media 100

Social Media Work Management Marketing Management Social Marketing 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 30, 2010

While it may be possible to build an outstanding standalone app that wows your audience, I think the chances are pretty similar to an individual seed’s chances of surviving to become a mature oak—really slim. CSC has been building the complex software that runs the processes of big insurance companies for decades—a kind of ERP for insurance.

Mobile Marketing 100

Mobile Marketing Mobile Advertising Paid Search Agency Wiki 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 10, 2009

It became a way to build trust and interest among prospects and to build a relationship with prospects based on knowledge rather than product information. Early engagement builds credibility and creates a stronger relationship.

Thought Leadership 100

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

Chris Koch

AUGUST 21, 2009

It forced me to think about all the components necessary to build and sustain a thought leadership strategy. Build a thought leadership network. The thought leadership network focuses on identifying internal thought leaders and building alliances with external academics and customers who can help develop and test ideas.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Network Marketing Paper 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 21, 2009

It forced me to think about all the components necessary to build and sustain a thought leadership strategy. Build a thought leadership network. The thought leadership network focuses on identifying internal thought leaders and building alliances with external academics and customers who can help develop and test ideas.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Network Marketing B2B Sales 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 4, 2012

I’m going to share my experiences in helping to build an engine for developing and disseminating good ideas for SAP (with names changed to protect the innocent and guilty alike). First, because I’ve left ITSMA and joined SAP , where I will focus on marketing the good ideas of the many subject matter experts there.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Social Media Twitter 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 18, 2009

Social media is another channel for making the connection and building the relationship with customers. This is why every B2B company should be moving into social media to start the process of building the skills and making the broad cultural changes needed to make social media work. But of course, no B2B marketing strategy does that.

Social Media 100

Social Media Peer-to-peer Social Marketing B2B Marketing 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 13, 2010

Rather than trying to craft an objective view of what HP employees thought of Hurd based on a handful of interviews with a few (possibly disgruntled) ex-employees, the reporter is able to build a credible case for the fact that, as it says on the headline, “Few HP workers shed a tear for Hurd.”. Longtime customers look especially like Slater.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media SME B2B 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 18, 2012

I’m excited about the prospect of not just presenting ideas to the SCN community but also in building ideas with this community. One of the best aspects of social media is the opportunity to put ideas to the community and gather feedback.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Communities Transparency 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 25, 2009

That’s why it’s important for us to start building our expertise in social media today, even if social media isn’t yet at the top of our marketing agenda (and our research shows that among B2B marketers, it is not). Even more reason to build your personal expertise while others wait. What do you think?

Social Media 100

Social Media Paid Search Agency Social Marketing B2B Marketing 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 5, 2010

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.

Wiki 100

Wiki Urgency Marketing Mobile Marketing Content 100

Chris Koch

JULY 16, 2009

Consider pairing one of your top executives with a top executive from a customer to build relationship and shepherd participation in various customer programs. Give customers an opportunity to shape your strategy—and be accountable for following through.

Peer-to-peer 100

Peer-to-peer Practices Thought Leadership Best Practices 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 22, 2010

And we have to continue to build that relationship over time until those buyers are ready to talk to us. This content must be like what the press used to provide, objective, idea-based, and educational—not selling. Put another way, we have to use content to establish a relationship with buyers where our salespeople can’t.

Lead Management 100

Lead Management Marketing Management Automation Marketing Automation Services 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 8, 2011

The organization views social media as important to relationship building. I’ve yet to see a B2B company have any success in social media that doesn’t have a social media policy, at least some training, and an informal social media center of excellence. Social media is integrated with traditional marketing.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Paid Search Agency PR 100

Chris Koch

JULY 16, 2009

Consider pairing one of your top executives with a top executive from a customer to build relationship and shepherd participation in various customer programs. Give customers an opportunity to shape your strategy—and be accountable for following through.

Peer-to-peer 100

Peer-to-peer Thought Leadership Practices Best Practices 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 28, 2011

Forcing analysts to start over again to build a personal following after they leave the fold may make it easier for replacements to follow acts like Owyang—at least from the corporate brand’s perspective. Let’s say Ray builds as big a following through his Forrester blog as Owyang did through his personal blog.

Personalization 100

Personalization Forrester Brand Identity Branding 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 5, 2011

Again, I’m not saying Facebook shouldn’t be part of a B2B social media strategy, but its utility as a platform for building a deeper relationship with B2B buyers still seems limited. Facebook just doesn’t seem like a good source for B2B thought leadership. What do you think? Tweet This Post.

Facebook 100

Facebook B2B Marketing B2B Thought Leadership B2B 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 26, 2010

But they may be open to building a relationship that could someday lead to a sale. We need a content engine capable of gaining the attention and respect of people who have never heard of us before. These people are not leads—they are not ready to be contacted by anyone. These people are prospects, not leads.

Social Media 100

Social Media Lead Generation B2B Thought Leadership Generation 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 12, 2009

This idea of viral relationship building (following followers of others) is what Facebook and MySpace look at and get really jealous about. That’s why I’m so intrigued by the viral relationship model invented by Twitter. Sounds nuts, right?

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Paid Search Agency Viral Marketing 100

Chris Koch

JULY 10, 2009

If prospects downloaded it, we can assume they were checking if their building or business is within Level 3’s fiber network. Since the vbook explains the need for reliable connectivity (Level 3’s product), if the user browsed through several sections, we could reliably consider them a warm lead.

Web 2.0 100

Web 2.0 B2B Thought Leadership Ideal Customer Profiles Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 15, 2010

But developing and disseminating content that builds relationships—think publishers and subscribers—takes different skills. PR people meanwhile should use their thick skins and relationship skills to help build the conversation in social media. This is where social media tools are helpful. Buyers become approachable.

Social Media 100

Social Media Work Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services 100

Chris Koch

MAY 22, 2009

–what do you do to protect the brand image you have spent years building up from crashing down around you? We put ourselves in a hypothetical situation that some of you may have faced for real: when something bad happens that involves your company–think Tylenol poisonings, accounting scandals, etc.–what

Brand Identity 100

Brand Identity Branding Tagging Transparency 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 7, 2012

Build a library of library of interesting and fun stories that plumb the minds of smart subject matter experts to help companies make better decisions–without shamelessly trying to sell stuff. Don’t know where to start. My Secret Ambition. To raise a moral, thoughtful, and funny child who will change the world.

Disintermediation 100

Disintermediation B2B Marketing Marketing Management Paid Search Agency 100