Chris Koch

JANUARY 22, 2010

We need to believe that more engagement between our companies and the people we want to reach is a good thing that ultimately leads to sales—but down a long, narrow, winding path with a few jumps between cliffs thrown in there. Here are some metrics, mostly for blogs, that help build engagement with customers and prospects.

Social Media 100

Social Media ROI Lead Ranking RSS 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 11, 2011

Taglines are the last bastions of a classic, one-way marketing messaging strategy, preserving marketing’s perceived right to tell customers what to think. 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. Image via Wikipedia. What do you think?

Social Marketing 100

Social Marketing Tactics B2B Thought Leadership Enterprise Management 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 11, 2011

Taglines are the last bastions of a classic, one-way marketing messaging strategy, preserving marketing’s perceived right to tell customers what to think. 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. Image via Wikipedia. What do you think?

Social Marketing 100

Social Marketing Tactics B2B Thought Leadership Enterprise Management 100

Chris Koch

MAY 15, 2012

Every B2B company has subject matter experts (SMEs) who are working with customers to solve problems and have deep backgrounds in customers’ processes, industries, and functions. How do I get these ideas in a form I can use with customers? Besides creating idea networks, B2B companies also have to become publishers.

FAQ 100

FAQ Custom Publishing B2B Sales Work Management 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 9, 2011

Consultant Fred Reichheld didn’t invent the concept of customer loyalty, but by identifying the marker for it, he changed how many companies approach managing customer loyalty. They identify a current trend, say a regulatory change, and offer perspective on what the trend means and how companies should react.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer Loyalty Case Study 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 9, 2011

Consultant Fred Reichheld didn’t invent the concept of customer loyalty, but by identifying the marker for it, he changed how many companies approach managing customer loyalty. They identify a current trend, say a regulatory change, and offer perspective on what the trend means and how companies should react.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer Loyalty Case Study 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 7, 2012

The guy who manages the platform at Forbes, Lewis Dvorkin, (if he also created the platform he’s a freakin’ genius) recently wrote about its power to disrupt traditional journalism , citing my new employer, SAP, as one of the companies that sometimes get more hits for the stuff it posts than Forbes’ own journalism.

Disintermediation 100

Disintermediation B2B Marketing Marketing Management Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 13, 2010

The information from a social site like this changes how journalists can write about a huge company like HP. Here are a few thoughts: We must monitor what’s being said about our companies online. Our customers aren’t going to do a United breaks guitars on us. Longtime customers look especially like Slater.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media SME B2B 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 5, 2011

I’m not saying that B2B companies shouldn’t be on Facebook. I think every company should be on Facebook. So I think B2B businesses should have a Facebook page that shares whatever content the company is already producing. There are just too many people passing through those turnstiles not to put up a sign somewhere.

Facebook 100

Facebook B2B Marketing B2B Thought Leadership B2B 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 25, 2010

How can we help customers be extroverts? Those numbers look bad, but we have to think of them from our customers’ perspectives. What if you post a thread on a topic that your company doesn’t want you talking about? What if you wind up looking like an idiot in front of your peers and embarrassing yourself and your company?

Social Media 100

Social Media Peer-to-peer Media Wikipedia 100

Chris Koch

MAY 14, 2010

Our subject matter experts (SMEs) are talking to customers. We’re seeing companies use social media to bring customers into the product and service development processes to collaborate on new ideas and improvements. We’re seeing companies use social media for customer support. Governance. What do you think?

Organic Leads 100

Organic Leads Social Media Social Marketing Organization 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 25, 2009

Our client said that in the past he has devoted most of his energies to the “how” battle because his company prides itself on seamless delivery. You can compare employee perceptions about customer needs and the potential new service with the perceptions and needs of the customers themselves. Stop relying on human nature.

Research 100

Research Service Product Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 25, 2009

Our client said that in the past he has devoted most of his energies to the “how” battle because his company prides itself on seamless delivery. You can compare employee perceptions about customer needs and the potential new service with the perceptions and needs of the customers themselves. Stop relying on human nature.

Research 100

Research Service Product Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 4, 2011

Publishers are left with a trickle of revenue and B2B companies discover just how uninterested a generic online audience is in their products and services. Though most respondents in our How Customers Choose research said the quality of their providers’ thought leadership was pretty good, nearly 40% said it could be better.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Advertising Agencies B2B Marketing Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 12, 2010

First, that they must know more about their CIO audiences than ever, and second, they must rethink how they market to target companies. Cloud moves IT outside the company. A report from the Corporate Executive Board entitled The Future of Corporate IT predicts that up to 80% of application spending will move outside the company.

Marketing Management 100

Marketing Management B2B Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 8, 2010

In the course of hundreds of interviews with companies over my career, the “yes but we’re different” mantra was a familiar refrain. 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. Not in our businesses, though.

Social Media 100

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership Media 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 25, 2011

In other words, unless we become idea organizations, we’re not going to have much to say to customers, prospects, and influencers in social media. Some management consulting companies have the commitment to ideas baked into the culture—you simply will not survive as a consultant if you do not create ideas that lead to new IP.

Social Media 100

Social Media Organization Peer-to-peer SME 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 12, 2010

That’s why increasingly, PR is going to become a matter of simply allowing your subject matter experts to be found rather than enlisting armies of PR people to try to force journalists and customers to find those subject matter experts. Every company needs a guard dog or two to be around in case of a PR disaster. Gatekeeper.

PR 100

PR Peer-to-peer Press Public Relations 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 5, 2010

First, let’s define what PR means from the perspective of the customer (i.e., a journalist) and the customer’s customer (i.e., Unless the company they work for is a startup or otherwise desperate for attention, these people tend to be ground down by the risk management aspect of their jobs over time. Guard dog PR.

PR 100

PR Press Paid Search Agency Lead Ranking 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 2, 2010

That’s what has led to the horrific vocabulary of mindless marketing speak that makes us utter things like “demonstrable value” with straight faces while deluding ourselves that it leaves an impression on customers. Hey, it was the best thing we came up with at the meeting, so why wouldn’t customers like it, too!?). Tweet This Post.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership B2B Marketing Marketing Budget Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 18, 2009

Giving up control of what is being said about your company is difficult for most marketers. The first hurdle for B2B marketers in developing a social media strategy is presenting a case for why their companies should be involved in social media at all. Social media is different. The focus shifts from messages to conversations.

Social Media 100

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

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

For these marketers, the pool of customers and prospects is small and many of them do not want to engage publicly in social media or are simply ignoring it altogether. For many companies, this translates into a wait-and-see approach to social media. For these companies, there is little reason to twitter into the wind.

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

For these marketers, the pool of customers and prospects is small and many of them do not want to engage publicly in social media or are simply ignoring it altogether. For many companies, this translates into a wait-and-see approach to social media. For these companies, there is little reason to twitter into the wind.

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 17, 2009

For a company’s most important (i.e., Sure, salespeople know the accounts—they know what the customers have spent and what they are most likely to want next. They may also know what the customers’ major business issues are—if they know how to ask. Our research shows that we may have found something: account planning.

Planning 100

Planning Process Work Management Verticals 100

Chris Koch

MAY 21, 2010

Have you ever noticed that your Facebook profile page looks like one of those horrible qualification forms that we make our customers fill out? That price is personal information, company information, and buying intent. Customers are less willing to give up information. The key is the interaction—not the information.

Privacy 100

Privacy B2B Marketing Lead Ranking B2B 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 10, 2009

See what you think of my answers: How did thought leadership initiatives in companies begin? Other companies have adopted pieces of the academic research publishing model for their own thought leadership marketing. Why did companies start focusing on it? 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

APRIL 8, 2011

The great thing about the experience was that this company is already doing social media. This company has established a highly visible presence in social media—indeed, it has won an award for it. We could all use some way to gauge our progress, especially in large, dispersed companies and marketing organizations.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Paid Search Agency PR 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 22, 2011

Innovation is becoming more external to companies and more social. They were the only C-level executives involved in all the efforts to rethink the ways that companies did work across the entire organization. Sadly, few CIOs took advantage of this cross-company view to innovate the ways that their companies did things. (In

Enterprise Management 100

Enterprise Management Work Management Marketing Management Social Media 100

Chris Koch

MAY 20, 2011

External: Customer councils. Many companies take it a step farther by making idea development part of employees’ annual goals. Marketers need to help create that culture in the company by facilitating the idea process. Awards programs. Primary and secondary research. Competitive intelligence.

Social Media 100

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Media Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 18, 2011

Meanwhile, trust in “credentialed experts” and “company technical specialists” is rising—we’re getting so desperate we even want to hear from the CEO. Our prospects and customers want us to cut through the noise of social media just as they’ve wanted us to cut through the noise of every other communications channel that came before.

Peer-to-peer 100

Peer-to-peer Thought Leadership Social Media Storytelling 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 18, 2011

Too much of our content just tries to look and sound smart—great focus on ideas, but no real connection to how our companies can solve the problem. Both of these themes give subject matter experts and marketers plenty of leeway to focus on ideas while maintaining a link to the company strategy and its offerings.

Work Management 100

Work Management Thought Leadership Marketing Management Paper 100

Chris Koch

MAY 22, 2009

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 Customers and prospects will be anxious to hear whether they were right to place their trust in the brand. Respond quickly.

Brand Identity 100

Brand Identity Branding Tagging Transparency 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 7, 2011

But they call it “financial services” for a reason: They have all of the same struggles as technology services companies—with the added complication of tons of regulatory requirements. They had to do with other things that companies have to do before they can successfully engage in social media. Marketers can handle all that stuff.

Social Media 100

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

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 7, 2011

But they call it “financial services” for a reason: They have all of the same struggles as technology services companies—with the added complication of tons of regulatory requirements. They had to do with other things that companies have to do before they can successfully engage in social media. Marketers can handle all that stuff.

Social Media 100

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

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 4, 2012

Second, I’m changing the name because I’m going to make it my personal mission to end the use of the term thought leadership to describe this method of marketing B2B companies. But thought leadership is supposed to be the antidote to the stuff that we (and, more important, customers) dismiss as collateral.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Social Media Twitter 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 26, 2010

Marketing is the default head of social media management in most companies. And while marketers can create some social media content, they can (and should) rely on their subject matter experts (SMEs) to create most of the stuff that’s going to build trust and relationships with customers. Get ideas from customers.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership RSS Enterprise Management Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

MAY 1, 2009

Our research on Account-Based Marketing has revealed a few such tasks: Customer understanding. In B2B, both marketers and salespeople know the value of learning about customers’ business issues and needs. And both know how to gain that understanding. But it makes sense to collaborate. What do you think?

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Cross-Selling B2B Sales Thought Leadership 100