Chris Koch

MAY 21, 2010

If you go to Facebook and look at your profile, your immediate reaction is going to be that it’s asking for too much information. The question that we’re asking Facebook is the question that we should be asking ourselves in our marketing: Do we really need all this information? The expectation on Twitter is that 99.9%

Privacy 100

Privacy B2B Marketing Lead Ranking B2B 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 24, 2010

Salespeople remained dependent on marketers for information. If they don’t it’s because they don’t see the link between sharing information and fatter bonus checks. Sharing information in a way that doesn’t overly sap productivity (hard to do before social media came along) raises all boats. Salespeople mostly ignored them.

Peer-to-peer 100

Peer-to-peer Wiki Marketing Management Internet Marketing 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 29, 2010

For example, there is no way that the typical Webinar is worth as much as an in-depth research report, yet we make buyers give us the same amount of information for both—we charge them the same price. For example, research shows that Europeans value their privacy more than Americans—meaning that their information may cost you more.

Lead Ranking 100

Lead Ranking Lead Scoring B2B Thought Leadership Mobile Advertising 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 29, 2010

For example, there is no way that the typical Webinar is worth as much as an in-depth research report, yet we make buyers give us the same amount of information for both—we charge them the same price. For example, research shows that Europeans value their privacy more than Americans—meaning that their information may cost you more.

Lead Ranking 100

Lead Ranking Lead Scoring B2B Thought Leadership Mobile Advertising 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 5, 2010

We got a question this week from an ITSMA client asking about developing a business case for creating mobile applications for their website content. I said that I haven’t seen any of those business cases yet. And I don’t think I ever will. We’re seeing mobile be part of an integrated approach to social media, not as a standalone.

Wiki 100

Wiki Urgency Marketing Mobile Marketing Content 100

Chris Koch

MAY 15, 2012

They are looking for inspiration and guidance on the business problems they face. They are looking for good ideas, facts, and data about how to solve their specific business problems. But I don’t have access to that kind of information. Maybe not, but someone inside your organization does.

FAQ 100

FAQ Custom Publishing B2B Sales Work Management 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 10, 2009

The most famous business incarnation of this model is the Harvard Business Review, which began publishing in 1922. In industries where the product or service is very information intensive, such as research, management consulting, technology, aerospace, etc., The journals have boards made up of top academics in a given field.

Thought Leadership 100

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

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 12, 2009

We all like to share relevant, credible content through social media, and until now, most of that content has come through traditional media sources—mostly print publications that are pretending to have a viable business model online. Our traditional business model for media is imploding. The tools are imperfect for informing us.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Paid Search Agency Viral Marketing 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 19, 2010

Gather information by asking questions. Asking for information helps deepen social media relationships. Taking a poll in a LinkedIn or Facebook group, asking for input from Twitter followers, or asking for information through comments on blogs are some of the ways to gather information. Seed discussions. Tweet This Post.

Social Media 100

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

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 9, 2011

What’s unspoken here is that you need to develop thought leadership that is appropriate to each stage of the buying process so that buyers (and salespeople) can get the right information at the right time.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer Loyalty Case Study 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 9, 2011

What’s unspoken here is that you need to develop thought leadership that is appropriate to each stage of the buying process so that buyers (and salespeople) can get the right information at the right time.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer Loyalty Case Study 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). It will improve the quality of their posts and it will also help you keep them focused on the issues that matter most to your business. Get ideas from customers. Tweet This Post.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership RSS Enterprise Management Thought Leadership 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. Viral How-Tos. Not that Pettis was a bad teacher.

Conference 100

Conference Education Viral Marketing Class 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. Given the potential for lead generation through social media, the question then becomes how much information should we try to get from people coming to us through social media? In our recent Web 2.0

Web 2.0 100

Web 2.0 B2B Thought Leadership Ideal Customer Profiles Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 2, 2010

And you never get any interesting assignments if you aren’t able to communicate information through a narrative structure—a story with a number of star characters and a beginning, middle, and end. Those two things are built into the process. You get fired if you don’t interview people and feature them in your story. It’s the same in B2B.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership B2B Marketing Marketing Budget Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 22, 2010

And finally, the trade press and general business media are dying. Yet buyers are hungrier than ever for this kind of information and insight. They want to become as informed as possible about current trends and their buying options before they ever speak to a salesperson. Buyers are removing salespeople from the buying process.

Lead Management 100

Lead Management Marketing Management Automation Marketing Automation Services 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 17, 2009

They may also know what the customers’ major business issues are—if they know how to ask. Our research shows that customers don’t think their providers do a very good job of helping them with their business issues. Marketing assigned her to work with sales to try to win the business of a major toy retailer.

Planning 100

Planning Process Work Management Verticals 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

MAY 1, 2009

In B2B, both marketers and salespeople know the value of learning about customers’ business issues and needs. Marketers can use those contacts to start building a larger context—the business issues that cross functional, corporate, and vertical boundaries. And both know how to gain that understanding. But it makes sense to collaborate.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Cross-Selling B2B Sales Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 5, 2010

The agency must go through the guard dogs to get permission for the subject matter experts to speak, then they must get the attention of the busy interviewee, then they must coordinate with the busy executive and the external parties to make it all come together. I truly valued these PR pros and always told them so. What do you think?

PR 100

PR Press Paid Search Agency Lead Ranking 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 23, 2012

That means lists and top tens and bullet points and lots of informative subheads. Readers have to feel your commitment. Blogs are the comfort food of idea marketing: quick, tasty, and not great for your long-term health. No long narratives. We invite them to taste the healthier stuff by linking to the full menu through the blog posts.

Paper 100

Paper Social Media Social Marketing B2B Marketing 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 21, 2011

At ITSMA , we’ve been busy preparing for our annual State of the Marketing Profession briefing next Tuesday. It has made those little pictures and bios at the end of white papers seem inadequate when compared to the wealth of information we can see about people on such social media channels as LinkedIn and Twitter.

Social Media 100

Social Media Budget Programs Paper PR 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 30, 2010

I always take analysts’ forecasts with a grain of salt, but ABI’s prediction that mobile marketing (ads on mobile phones) will be a $4 billion business by 2014 makes you stop and think. The classic B2B mobile applications have been internally focused, giving maintenance people access to service information while they are out in the field.

Mobile Marketing 100

Mobile Marketing Mobile Advertising Paid Search Agency Wiki 100

Chris Koch

JULY 22, 2011

Many of us in B2B can be proud of how we educate our customers and prospects on the business issues they face—from current regulatory changes to future “sea changes.” Then, the day after surgery, the nurse informed me that I was being moved to be “with my own kind” over in orthopedics. I was in heaven.

Work Management 100

Work Management Marketing Management Social Media B2B Marketing 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 18, 2011

Good ideas aren’t enough; those ideas need to be informed by a wide-ranging exposure to other inputs and opinions. Thought leaders see the threads of insight lurking within a complex stream of information and use them to create a new idea or a new way of looking at an old problem. Storytelling.

Peer-to-peer 100

Peer-to-peer Thought Leadership Social Media Storytelling 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 18, 2009

When buyers engage their most important sources of information—their peers—most of those conversations (90%, according to a study by Walter J. B2B customers tend to be high on the executive ladder and are usually reluctant to discuss their business strategies in public forums. With good reason.

Social Media 100

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

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 30, 2009

We found that usage of social media among IT and business buyers of technology rose 50% over last year and finally pushed to majority status—55% said they use social media as part of the technology buying process in 2009 versus just 37% in 2008. Sounds like a business case for investment to me. This has big implications for marketers.

Social Media 100

Social Media Peer-to-peer Enterprise Management Media 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 8, 2011

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. Basic social media governance has been established. The organization views social media as important to relationship building.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Paid Search Agency PR 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

We could control the public conversation because our audience had few public outlets for giving or receiving information. Develop a strategy for responding to customers and influencers who talk about your company or relevant business issues. After all, that’s how we’ve always done it. We push messages out and try to stir up attention.

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

We could control the public conversation because our audience had few public outlets for giving or receiving information. Develop a strategy for responding to customers and influencers who talk about your company or relevant business issues. After all, that’s how we’ve always done it. We push messages out and try to stir up attention.

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 24, 2009

Social media is supposed to be fun, informal, conversational and open. Also, check out the non-profit Social Media Business Council’s Disclosure Toolkit. Encourage openness, honesty and transparency. The guidelines should include a place to go for advice. Ditch the legalese. Make it public. Tweet This Post.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Guidelines B2B 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 26, 2009

You may have to adopt a more split business personality (and do more work). You’re better off getting a dedicated tool that lets you manage the flow of information. You can “mass follow” my followers to instantly build up your network, or pick through the contacts individually (their bio information is included).

Social Media 100

Social Media Social Marketing B2B Marketing Personalization 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 5, 2009

If, for example, a company responds to a crisis by aggressively marketing itself to replace lost business without addressing the crisis or its impact, the company’s brand image will suffer. Customers and prospects are better informed than ever, thanks to the Internet and global connectivity. Analysts and influencers.

Paid Search Agency 100

Paid Search Agency Companies Work Management Ethics 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 22, 2010

The only effective argument I’ve heard recently is that we embed calls to action in social media that drive readers to a landing page where we capture their information and start nurturing them as leads. We just have a hard time proving it. And it leads back to the problem we have with PR. When is the right moment to start promoting my blog?

Social Media 100

Social Media ROI Lead Ranking RSS 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. Paul Dunay makes the case for one in this post, and Scott Brinker has been beating the drum for this for some time. Maybe I’m splitting hairs here, but I wonder about the long-term need for a marketing technologist.

Analytics 100

Analytics Paid Search Agency Marketing Management Loyalty 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 8, 2010

Not in our businesses, though. Marketing needs to develop materials that are appropriate to each stage of the buying process, so that customers and salespeople can get the right information at the right time. And yes, we are all unique. But in most things, we’re the same and we can usually acknowledge that.

Social Media 100

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership Media 100