Chris Koch

MARCH 12, 2010

Social media is raising the bar on customer intimacy. Though it has become a generic term, customer intimacy was first coined by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema who worked at CSC/Index back in the 90s when I was a thought leadership marketer there. The theory is that every company competes in three disciplines: Customer intimacy.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Thought Leadership Work Management 100

Chris Koch

JULY 24, 2009

using data to determine and predict customer buying patterns. There needs to be agreement on when and how a lead will come back to marketing if sales doesn’t pursue it or if the prospect turns out not to be interested. We know from our research that we in marketing don’t do much with analytics—i.e., Lead nurturing. Tweet This Post.

Top of Funnel 100

Top of Funnel Lead Scoring Lead Ranking Marketing Automation Services 100

Chris Koch

JULY 24, 2009

using data to determine and predict customer buying patterns. There needs to be agreement on when and how a lead will come back to marketing if sales doesn’t pursue it or if the prospect turns out not to be interested. We know from our research that we in marketing don’t do much with analytics—i.e., Lead nurturing.

Lead Qualification 100

Lead Qualification Marketing Automation Services Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 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. One company has created an internal portal where project members submit ideas that are vetted and voted on by the project customers. What do I mean by an idea organization?

Social Media 100

Social Media Organization Peer-to-peer SME 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. Listen for conversation about your company or about relevant issues for you and your customers.

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. Listen for conversation about your company or about relevant issues for you and your customers.

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 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. He argues that putting a data form in front of a prospect displays a lack of confidence in the quality of our work and at worst drives people into the arms of competitors. 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 30, 2010

Our customers and prospects—especially the younger ones—will be looking at smartphones as one of their primary computing platforms—if not the primary platform. Is there a reason for you to offer whatever help you give to customers through mobile? Continuity. An example of this is user groups. Timeliness.

Mobile Marketing 100

Mobile Marketing Mobile Advertising Paid Search Agency Wiki 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? Customers are less willing to give up information. 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.

Privacy 100

Privacy B2B Marketing Lead Ranking 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. As I interview SMEs around SAP and external influencers like analysts and customers, I want to be able to share the raw ideas in their earliest stages so that I can inform people and get their feedback.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Communities Transparency 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 18, 2011

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. Their rapport with customers extends to a genuine, ego-free interest in the problems those customers face.

Peer-to-peer 100

Peer-to-peer Thought Leadership Social Media Storytelling 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 22, 2010

So if you buy that leap of logic, let’s say that blogs are another channel, like PR, in a marketing mix designed to familiarize customers and prospects with our companies and us. And if that’s true, then we should try to increase the volume and quality of interactions with have with customers and prospects through social media, no?

Social Media 100

Social Media ROI Lead Ranking RSS 100

Chris Koch

MAY 22, 2009

Customers and prospects will be anxious to hear whether they were right to place their trust in the brand. Assess the pace and depth of customer losses. The most important vital signs for companies to monitor in the wake of a crisis are the pace and depth of customer losses. Respond quickly. Length of the crisis.

Brand Identity 100

Brand Identity Branding Tagging Transparency 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 4, 2011

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. And this potential windfall isn’t limited to new prospects. Existing customers are also looking for new ideas. Too bad more of them aren’t doing it.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Advertising Agencies B2B Marketing Paid Search Agency 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. Marketing can help.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Cross-Selling B2B Sales Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 18, 2009

B2B companies have fewer, more complex customer relationships and are often conservative and protective of those relationships. 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. But of course, no B2B marketing strategy does that.

Social Media 100

Social Media Peer-to-peer Social Marketing B2B Marketing 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. What do I mean by sales enablement? We all know how sales enablement got started in B2B. Sales enablement used to mean brochures. But then the internet came along.

Peer-to-peer 100

Peer-to-peer Wiki Marketing Management Internet Marketing 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 8, 2011

I speak to many regulated B2B companies who (still) don’t believe their employees can engage in uncontrolled conversations with customers and prospects. Companies need to give themselves permission to engage in social media, both within marketing and in the broader culture of the company. Internal social media is thriving.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Paid Search Agency PR 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

B2B marketing lays the path to a sales discussion and supports relationships with existing customers. Social media is another channel—one of many—for making the connection and building the relationship with customers. Social media is no silver bullet. At the C-level especially, face-to-face remains the killer app for everyone involved.

Social Media 100

Social Media Marketing Strategy Marketing & Strategy B2B Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 19, 2010

Take an active role in social media by engaging with customers and influencers in the various forums where conversations are taking place. Monitoring can be used to discover customers and prospects that are most relevant for your offerings by observing the patterns and topics of their conversations. Here they are: Monitor.

Social Media 100

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

Chris Koch

JULY 22, 2011

Sure, healthcare knows how to sell drugs, but in terms of preparing the customer for the experience of service delivery, fuggedaboudit. Here are some examples: Educate the customer—or don’t. Oh wait, right… Whatever you do, don’t let the customer meet the people who will actually be doing the work.

Work Management 100

Work Management Marketing Management Social Media B2B Marketing 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 12, 2010

The experts say that in the new era of social media, marketers need to stop delivering tightly-scripted, one-way messages and start engaging in uncontrolled, transparent conversations with customers and prospects wherever those conversations happen. Look, I love Forrester.

Social Media 100

Social Media Forrester Media Transparency 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 5, 2010

Regardless, it’s a twist on an old consultant’s trick: Gain attention and credibility with press, customers, and influencers by creating your own definition, which gives you the ability to insert the “what we call x…” phrase into descriptions of otherwise basic things. What are customers’ areas of interest?

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Gartner Planning 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. Whichever channels your prospects are interested in receiving it and at the stage of the buying process they are at. So they are all here for your enjoyment.) Please add your thoughts!

Thought Leadership 100

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