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. Existing customers are also looking for new ideas. This longing for personalization isn’t just heard in the context of thought leadership, however.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Advertising Agencies B2B Marketing Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 6, 2009

Most magazines do annual reader surveys to ask subscribers what they think of the magazine and what could be improved. Through these surveys, they construct archetypes of the typical reader. Marketers can replace offers with survey questions once in awhile to help build an understanding of timely issues to drive future content.

Planning 100

Planning B2B Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 6, 2009

Most magazines do annual reader surveys to ask subscribers what they think of the magazine and what could be improved. Through these surveys, they construct archetypes of the typical reader. Marketers can replace offers with survey questions once in awhile to help build an understanding of timely issues to drive future content.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Planning Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency 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. But from the ashes of publishing, subtle association is making a comeback. What does it mean?

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Advertising Agencies Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 9, 2011

In ITSMA’s Thought Leadership Survey, marketers with formal thought leadership processes segment their ideas this way 95% of the time. 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.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer Loyalty Case Study 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 9, 2011

In ITSMA’s Thought Leadership Survey, marketers with formal thought leadership processes segment their ideas this way 95% of the time. 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.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer Loyalty Case Study 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 7, 2009

When I was at CIO, I was very frustrated with the findings from our State of the CIO survey because they were relentlessly identical from year to year. So one year when I ran the State of the CIO survey we decided to take a deeper look at this data. CIOs are not all the same. We came up with some interesting insights.

Planning 100

Planning Segmentation Work Management Gartner 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!?). all do that, too.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership B2B Marketing Marketing Budget Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 18, 2011

In fact, our most recent thought leadership survey found that few marketers are measuring much besides consumption of their marketing content. Marketers tell me that if they can get salespeople to even send the thing to prospects and customers they’re happy. Alas, no such magic metric exists. We’re focusing on the wrong things.

Work Management 100

Work Management Thought Leadership Marketing Management Paper 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 7, 2009

When I was at CIO, I was very frustrated with the findings from our State of the CIO survey because they were relentlessly identical from year to year. So one year when I ran the State of the CIO survey we decided to take a deeper look at this data. CIOs are not all the same. We came up with some interesting insights. Tweet This Post.

Planning 100

Planning Segmentation Work Management Gartner 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

JULY 24, 2009

using data to determine and predict customer buying patterns. Only 50% of marketers in our survey said they had analytics programs, and of these, few were focused on predicting behavior; most were simply reporting past behavior. We know from our research that we in marketing don’t do much with analytics—i.e., 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. Only 50% of marketers in our survey said they had analytics programs, and of these, few were focused on predicting behavior; most were simply reporting past behavior. We know from our research that we in marketing don’t do much with analytics—i.e.,

Lead Qualification 100

Lead Qualification Marketing Automation Services Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 29, 2009

A survey of 1000 consumers by marketing agency Razorfish found that just 3.5% According to Razorfish, 44% of respondents said they were looking for exclusive deals or offers, while 24% said they followed the brand because they were customers and 23% said they followed in the hopes of getting interesting or entertaining content.

Enterprise Management 100

Enterprise Management B2B Marketing B2B Thought Leadership Marketing Management 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 13, 2010

As a researcher, I know that that is a pretty respectable survey sample. 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.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media SME B2B 100

Chris Koch

JULY 10, 2009

survey, (all ITSMA clients can download this executive summary ), we found that “increased web traffic&# was the most frequently cited benefit of Web 2.0 Indeed, some B2B early adopters are seeing 10-15% of their lead totals generated through social media, according to this survey by DemandGenReport. In our recent Web 2.0

Web 2.0 100

Web 2.0 B2B Thought Leadership Ideal Customer Profiles Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

MAY 14, 2010

At least that’s the conclusion we reached at ITSMA recently when we did our social media survey (there’s a free summary if you’re interested). Our subject matter experts (SMEs) are talking to customers. We’re seeing companies use social media for customer support. Now what do we mean when we say that? What do you think?

Organic Leads 100

Organic Leads Social Media Social Marketing Organization 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

OCTOBER 30, 2009

And yet our latest annual survey of 355 buyers of complex IT solutions, How Customers Choose Solution Providers, 2009: The Importance of Personalization, Epiphanies, and Social Media, shows that the door to the C-suite is opening up. In fact, it’s hard for most of us to imagine these people using social media at all.

Social Media 100

Social Media Peer-to-peer Enterprise Management Media 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 21, 2009

Survey internal sales and marketing staff, customers, target markets, and influencers to determine what they are looking for. Here are some questions to ask: Do customers view of you as a thought leader; if not, can they envision you moving into that role? What are customers’ areas of interest?

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Network Marketing Paper 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 21, 2009

Survey internal sales and marketing staff, customers, target markets, and influencers to determine what they are looking for. Here are some questions to ask: Do customers view of you as a thought leader; if not, can they envision you moving into that role? What are customers’ areas of interest?

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Network Marketing B2B Sales 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 30, 2010

According to a recent survey by ABI Research, 28% of respondents said that they access web sites from their phones at least once per day —up 75% in a year. 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. Continuity.

Mobile Marketing 100

Mobile Marketing Mobile Advertising Paid Search Agency Wiki 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

With customers able to do so much research online, the way to get in the door these days is to have information that isn’t readily available elsewhere. We need to supply salespeople with the information that will create the impression among customers that they are missing something if they don’t stay in touch—an information dependency.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Consulting B2B Sales Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

With customers able to do so much research online, the way to get in the door these days is to have information that isn’t readily available elsewhere. We need to supply salespeople with the information that will create the impression among customers that they are missing something if they don’t stay in touch—an information dependency.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services B2B Sales Consulting Marketing Automation 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 16, 2009

Earlier this year I surveyed B2B marketers about their approaches to corporate blogging. Corporate-hosted blogs won’t be able to take advantage of the latest social tools that complement blogs without going to IT and getting some custom coding. Their strategies take two basic approaches. Life sentence. Failure runs deep.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Blogger Thought Leadership Word of Mouth 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 15, 2010

Today, more salespeople are able to have business and strategy discussions with customers and take the time to listen to their needs. Marketers today are in the same position I was with that sales guy in 1995: Wondering how to explain the value and difficulty of creating clear, compelling content about a complex subject. Tweet This Post.

Social Media 100

Social Media Work Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 18, 2009

For marketers trying to build relationships with influencers and customers, this is a fundamental roadblock, because the permission model tries to replicate the way we form relationships in real life: Trust needs to be established before we enter into a relationship. What do you think?

Social Media 100

Social Media Viral Marketing Tools Media 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 18, 2009

For marketers trying to build relationships with influencers and customers, this is a fundamental roadblock, because the permission model tries to replicate the way we form relationships in real life: Trust needs to be established before we enter into a relationship. What do you think?

Social Media 100

Social Media Viral Marketing Tools Media 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

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