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. Answers to these questions will help drive the structure of the program and provide a foundation for achieving ROI goals. Create a content development process.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Network Marketing B2B Sales 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 4, 2012

I’m going to share my experiences in helping to build an engine for developing and disseminating good ideas for SAP (with names changed to protect the innocent and guilty alike). It’s impossible for a tweet to be thought leadership but tweets have an important role to play in the development and promotion of ideas.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Social Media Twitter 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 6, 2009

The winners get serious recognition for their work that helps their companies and their careers. I wish I could take credit for the MEAs, but it was developed long before I got to ITSMA. It was developed by my ITSMA colleagues Pam O’Rourke and Maria Lindberg. You have to check it out. We humans are wired for stories.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership Budget Programs Business 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 30, 2010

But the reason that these applications are so impressive is not because they were developed as standalone mobile applications but because they take advantage of a deep reservoir of thinking and intellectual property developed over many years— elsewhere. At ITSMA, we’re seeing four main reasons for doing it: Help.

Mobile Marketing 100

Mobile Marketing Mobile Advertising Paid Search Agency Wiki 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 25, 2009

I helped host an ITSMA round table this week and a near universal complaint from our B2B technology clients was how difficult it is to launch new services in a fast, efficient way. It pays to know what’s available from competitors before you develop your own offering. Concurrent) Customer research and employee/partner research.

Research 100

Research Service Product Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

MAY 15, 2012

They assume that salespeople can’t help them at that point. Sales and marketing need to work together to develop an idea network —a group of internal and external SMEs that can help develop and vet new ideas and put them into the hands of salespeople. And for the most part, they’re right.

FAQ 100

FAQ Custom Publishing B2B Sales Work Management 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 23, 2009

The bad news is that gaining real insight from that data is difficult—though a horde of software developers is working on it. Some developers are using algorithms and analysis to determine whether conversations are positive or negative and whether the individuals within the conversation are supporters or detractors.

Social Media 100

Social Media Tools Media RSS 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 19, 2010

I want to do something ambitious and I’m hoping you’ll help. Develop a target audience. Monitoring tools help determine how much impact these smart things are having on our target audiences. Search tools can help you mine that data. This helps you decide which blogs you’d like to do outreach with, for example.

Social Media 100

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

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 25, 2009

I helped host an ITSMA round table this week and a near universal complaint from our B2B technology clients was how difficult it is to launch new services in a fast, efficient way. It pays to know what’s available from competitors before you develop your own offering. Concurrent) Customer research and employee/partner research.

Research 100

Research Service Product Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 26, 2010

One of the biggest challenges for B2B social media marketers isn’t creating content, it’s helping others create content. That’s why marketers have to step in and help out. Very few writers are able to get their best thoughts out on paper without some help. Marketers should use them to help inspire their content creators.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership RSS Enterprise Management Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

MAY 14, 2010

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 need to create an idea engine within the organization to help SMEs come up with things to Twitter and blog about. Our subject matter experts (SMEs) are talking to customers.

Organic Leads 100

Organic Leads Social Media Social Marketing Organization 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 6, 2009

But this trend has an unintended side effect: it exposes our content development processes (or lack thereof). And the publishing process works better than the marketing content development process because the publishing process developed without an overlord (e.g., salespeople screaming for a brochure today or an event tomorrow).

Planning 100

Planning B2B Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 6, 2009

But this trend has an unintended side effect: it exposes our content development processes (or lack thereof). And the publishing process works better than the marketing content development process because the publishing process developed without an overlord (e.g., salespeople screaming for a brochure today or an event tomorrow).

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Planning Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 15, 2010

I think it’s fear that the hardest aspect of marketing, content development, is ascending to become marketing’s most important role, as advertising, traditional PR, and events shrink and fall away. Marketing departments are going to have to transform themselves into content development engines. The content engine.

Social Media 100

Social Media Work Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services 100

Chris Koch

MAY 19, 2014

Basically it’s the things we tamp down with Ritalin today: “We don’t let kids be playful, explore, or help them understand who they are,” he said. After his speech to the conference at large, Pettis held a Q&A in a small side vestibule where he was asked to explain what makes him so angry. A CEO Who Lived the Crisis in Education.

Conference 100

Conference Education Viral Marketing Class 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 18, 2009

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. Developing these new skills and ways of thinking takes time. Social media seems better suited to B2C, with its larger scale and simpler buying process.

Social Media 100

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

Chris Koch

MAY 1, 2009

That can help, but salespeople and marketers need more concrete reasons to work together. Marketing can help. Marketing develops an institutional memory that can help salespeople create shortcuts by identifying what has worked in the past and what has not, what resources may be appropriate, and what company assets exist that can help.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Cross-Selling B2B Sales Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 17, 2009

Our research shows that customers don’t think their providers do a very good job of helping them with their business issues. Marketers could help with that problem. And customers have an opportunity to get help and ideas on the issues that are most pressing to them. But there’s more that can be done.

Planning 100

Planning Process Work Management Verticals 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 9, 2010

For them to be successful, we need to help them establish their voices in a blog. If they are focused on developing new offerings, for example, this is a natural voice for them. A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about how to get others to blog. But it’s not enough just to support bloggers. Iconoclast.

SME 100

SME Aggregators Blogger Social Media 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 16, 2009

Thankfully, adults have another context for developing relationships: communities of learning. I’ve already developed what I think is a powerful network of B2B and social media thinkers that is in essence an ad hoc online community.And I have lots of people working to build that community for me. Follow to learn. Think about it.

Twitter 100

Twitter Web 2.0 Social Media Communities 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 16, 2009

These marketers take a direct role in finding and supporting internal bloggers and in helping them develop content. They encourage subject matter experts to blog, track what they write about, and offer blogging guidelines and help when needed. Their strategies take two basic approaches. Integration with other marketing.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Blogger Thought Leadership Word of Mouth 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 10, 2009

Especially in B2B, where the products and solutions are complex and usually need to be adapted/customized in some way, developing the relationship through knowledge helps demonstrate to customers that providers can go beyond the product specification sheet and help them with their business needs.

Thought Leadership 100

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

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 5, 2010

First, it focuses the agency on some clear goals—cranking out press releases and getting press mentions—and gives the guard dogs a degree of separation that helps with risk management. This means that metrics are based on merely making contact and shoveling crap out the door rather than helping influencers meet their goals.

PR 100

PR Press Paid Search Agency Lead Ranking 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

Develop a strategy for responding to customers and influencers who talk about your company or relevant business issues. This week, Jeremiah Owyang published a great framework of things that marketers have to do to listen well—including a list of vendors who help marketers listen.

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

Develop a strategy for responding to customers and influencers who talk about your company or relevant business issues. This week, Jeremiah Owyang published a great framework of things that marketers have to do to listen well—including a list of vendors who help marketers listen.

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 12, 2010

No wonder they all steer the argument in this direction; it makes it seem like Forrester is the aggrieved benefactor being sucked dry by selfish, ungrateful employees who insist on giving away the IP that Forrester pays them to create—and whose powerful brand opens the doors for them with the sources they need to help create that IP.

Social Media 100

Social Media Forrester Media Transparency 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 12, 2010

In their minds, they had already developed a deeply intimate relationship with the content that they associated me with, and they felt passionately enough to speak it to a complete stranger because I was associated with that content. But that doesn’t mean that the intimacy isn’t there. What do you think?

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Thought Leadership Work Management 100

Chris Koch

MAY 21, 2010

There is a cottage industry developing out there for people who want to protect you from Facebook. Reclaimprivacy.org is a small browser based program that practices a kind of benevolent vigilantism and helps you change your vulnerable privacy settings.

Privacy 100

Privacy B2B Marketing Lead Ranking B2B 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 24, 2009

Develop a draft that corporate and legal are comfortable with to make sure all the bases are covered. For example, Cisco has an e-mail alias called “internet postings” where employees can get help. But don’t provide them with a blank slate. The guidelines should include a place to go for advice. Ditch the legalese.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Guidelines B2B 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 5, 2009

They expected Ford to respond immediately to their requests for help. Meanwhile, the company kept up its emphasis on research and development so that customers would see that it was still committed to offering leading edge products. But customers had not bought their Explorers from a tire manufacturer; they had bought them from Ford.

Paid Search Agency 100

Paid Search Agency Companies Work Management Ethics 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 18, 2009

The recent growth of permission-based groups on these sites helps a little bit, but so much of what gets posted on group pages is noise—blatant advertising, desperate job seeking—that it can be difficult for marketers to cut through all that crap and establish trusting relationships based solely on being in the same group as someone else.

Social Media 100

Social Media Viral Marketing Tools Media 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 18, 2009

The recent growth of permission-based groups on these sites helps a little bit, but so much of what gets posted on group pages is noise—blatant advertising, desperate job seeking—that it can be difficult for marketers to cut through all that crap and establish trusting relationships based solely on being in the same group as someone else.

Social Media 100

Social Media Viral Marketing Tools Media 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 5, 2010

And in Gartner’s defense, sometimes IT can be so complex and confusing that it really does help to have an acronym for talking about things. So I’d like to try, with your help, to nip TLM in the bud before it gains the power to make us all miserable. I even developed an acronym: IM. Now, I don’t mean to single out Gartner here.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Gartner Planning 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 16, 2010

Just as in the main daily edition of the Times, all the news that’s fit to print for the “Connecticut Weekly” section didn’t include sweating the small stuff, the slowly developing, often tedious stories that are the bread-and-butter of local weeklies and dailies desperate to fill their pages. The predatory strike of summation.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Media 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. But marketers must lead and support SMEs in the development and publishing processes. By investing more in the idea development piece of thought leadership. Please add your thoughts!

Thought Leadership 100

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

Chris Koch

MARCH 12, 2012

who is a veteran of corporate networking (he helped develop the first devices for connecting PCs on the corporate network). Not so with an iPad, said Bob Egan, VP of Mobile Strategy for Mobiquity, Inc., But you can’t do this with one app.

Enterprise Management 100

Enterprise Management Lock-In Marketing Management Paper 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 18, 2014

I intended to write this blog about some of the amazing, helpful, and scary things that robots can do today, but even a quick look at the information out there demonstrates that robot is already an archaic term, like calling a car a horseless carriage. Hack your thoughts, beliefs, and your bank PIN.

Organization 100

Organization Spyware Domain Opinions 100