Chris Koch

MAY 15, 2012

As buyers do more searching, they are stretching the buying process earlier and earlier, to the point where they may not have a specific product or service in mind when they search. Most salespeople are still focused on selling specific products and services. How do I get these ideas in a form I can use with customers?

FAQ 100

FAQ Custom Publishing B2B Sales Work Management 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 13, 2010

The trajectory of Slater’s postings look a lot like the things that customers say about our complex B2B products and services, which have a much longer arc of relationship than B2C. Our customers aren’t going to do a United breaks guitars on us. Longtime customers look especially like Slater. What do you think?

Social Media 100

Social Media Media B2B SME 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 26, 2010

This is the stage that occurs long before any discussion of products, services, or RFPs—indeed, it occurs before customers have even begun to think about a purchase. 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.

Social Media 100

Social Media Lead Generation B2B Thought Leadership Generation 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 10, 2009

This depends on whether the products and services themselves are knowledge intensive. In industries where the product or service is very information intensive, such as research, management consulting, technology, aerospace, etc., This led to the explosion of the trade magazine industry during the 1960s-1980s.

Thought Leadership 100

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

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 7, 2012

I’m especially fond of the effect it has on my colleagues in SAP marketing: they understand that they no longer need to pitch products to get the attention of customers and prospects. That’s because customers and prospects actually come to the Forbes site and read our stuff. I give us a B- overall—not bad for a product company.

Disintermediation 100

Disintermediation B2B Marketing Marketing Management Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

I’m hearing a lot from clients and researchers about how vast swaths of salespeople need to be eliminated as companies transition from selling products to services and solutions. But I think we start slicing the genetic material a little too thinly when we separate the product salespeople from the services salespeople.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Consulting B2B Sales Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

I’m hearing a lot from clients and researchers about how vast swaths of salespeople need to be eliminated as companies transition from selling products to services and solutions. But I think we start slicing the genetic material a little too thinly when we separate the product salespeople from the services salespeople.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services B2B Sales Consulting Marketing Automation 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 2, 2010

Let’s face it, even if it was possible to curl up in front of the fire with a glass of wine and our B2B products and services, no one would do it. Hey, it was the best thing we came up with at the meeting, so why wouldn’t customers like it, too!?). Most of the things we sell are about as emotive as army ants. all do that, too.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership B2B Marketing Marketing Budget Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 29, 2009

Even if we believe deeply in the power of social media, we all have that gnawing feeling deep in our guts that says that there’s little reason for a busy, intelligent person to want to receive frequent updates about our brands when those brands produce complex services and products with two-year sales cycles. The research confirms it.

Enterprise Management 100

Enterprise Management B2B Marketing B2B Thought Leadership Marketing Management 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

JANUARY 8, 2010

Companies that made commodity products would tell me with straight faces that even their financial processes were unique—GAAP be damned—and that they needed to customize their software to fit “our ways of doing things.” Recommend products and services that you haven’t thoroughly researched and you will most likely be out of a job.

Social Media 100

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership Media 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. What do you think?

Organic Leads 100

Organic Leads Social Media Social Marketing Organization 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. 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.

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. 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.

Social Media 100

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

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 24, 2010

I heard a great definition from my former ITSMA colleague Jeff Sands the other day: Sales enablement is helping salespeople be more credible with customers. Marketers helped salespeople put words to the insanely complex products and services they were trying to sell. We all know how sales enablement got started in B2B.

Peer-to-peer 100

Peer-to-peer Wiki Marketing Management Internet Marketing 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 17, 2010

Publishers (the good ones, anyway) gave some of the most prominent pages in their newspapers and magazines to advertisers in return for a lot of cash, access to a targeted group of customers, and editorial independence from advertiser influence. And all this deep thinking relates, by association, to the services that you offer.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Advertising Agencies Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 30, 2009

Most of ITSMA’s clients are B2B marketers from big technology companies that sell big, complex products, services, and solutions. That means that the people buying those services—or at least playing a key role in the decision—tend to be high up on the corporate food chain—the C-suite or just below.

Social Media 100

Social Media Peer-to-peer Enterprise Management Media 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 15, 2010

But a quick read of our magazine showed that we didn’t write about products. Today, more salespeople are able to have business and strategy discussions with customers and take the time to listen to their needs. The IT industry was on fire and the stuff was flying out the doors. Kind of a Fortune magazine for IT executives.

Social Media 100

Social Media Work Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services 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

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

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

Most of the marketers I talk to are trying to reach a few top executives in big organizations who make buying decisions about big, complex products and services. 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.

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

Most of the marketers I talk to are trying to reach a few top executives in big organizations who make buying decisions about big, complex products and services. 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.

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 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., Your customer hates and avoids you. These aren’t the people you want talking to influencers and customers. And customers never read the releases. As in dead. Don’t do it anymore.

PR 100

PR Press Paid Search Agency Lead Ranking 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 12, 2012

This is cross-posted on the SAP Services blog]: Mobile applications are a little like vacation snapshots: They are informative, sometimes fun—beautiful, even—but they don’t tell a full story on their own. My destination? New Jersey. Turns out they’re doing some good thinking about mobility down there. Far from it.

Enterprise Management 100

Enterprise Management Lock-In Marketing Management Paper 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 28, 2010

From Facebook to email to putting telephones on employees’ desks (remember, the telephone started as a “consumer” communication technology, too), companies think that every new wave is going to lead to gajillions in lost productivity. The ultimate risk in business is that your customers stop buying from you because they don’t trust you.

Planning 100

Planning Work Management Paid Search Agency B2B Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 5, 2010

It may look better and read better than a brochure, but it’s still a brochure because it emphasizes our products and services over the needs of the people we are trying to reach. It presupposes that we have something to talk about besides our products and services. What a mouthful. I even developed an acronym: IM.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Gartner Planning 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 7, 2014

But research by my colleague Stephanie Overby has found that the real workhorse driving increased customization of manufactured goods on the production line is the Computer Numerical Control (CNC) Machine. CNC machines make it easier for companies to customize products; alterations are just a matter of reprogramming the software.

Startups 100

Startups High Quality Lead Cost Order 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 20, 2009

Two main threads underpin the logic behind these urgings: Your customers are becoming more active in social media, so you’d better get with it. Customer factors. Customers (the younger ones, anyway) are adopting social media. Your competitors are adopting social in their marketing strategies, so if you don’t do it, they will.

Social Media 100

Social Media Social Marketing B2B Marketing Work Management 100