Chris Koch

JANUARY 29, 2010

Okay, so it’s difficult to actually pull money out of buyers for your marketing content (though there are rare exceptions: McKinsey has been doing it for years with the McKinsey Quarterly). Make no mistake; buyers understand the prices behind marketing content. Image via Wikipedia. We’re the ones who don’t pay enough attention to it.

Lead Ranking 100

Lead Ranking Lead Scoring B2B Thought Leadership Mobile Advertising 100

Chris Koch

JULY 31, 2009

It’s time to declare marketing metrics a failure once and for all. It’s difficult to parse out the contribution that marketing makes to a sale and it’s even more difficult to get salespeople to spend the time figuring out/checking the box/giving credit in the quest to determine whether marketing played a role in making the sale.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency Work Management B2B Sales 100

Chris Koch

JULY 31, 2009

It’s time to declare marketing metrics a failure once and for all. It’s difficult to parse out the contribution that marketing makes to a sale and it’s even more difficult to get salespeople to spend the time figuring out/checking the box/giving credit in the quest to determine whether marketing played a role in making the sale.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency Work Management B2B Sales 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. We’re starting to see social media have a positive impact on driving traffic to websites and on lead generation. Increased lead generation” was farther down the list—24% are seeing it.

Web 2.0 100

Web 2.0 B2B Thought Leadership Ideal Customer Profiles Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 9, 2014

First, I worked in small companies for my entire career leading up to 2012, when I joined SAP, which is a huge company, and like any huge company, has its share of bureaucracy that was absent from my previous workplaces. There are five ways that technology (current technology, anyway) leads to work conflict. In a word: context.

Distribution 100

Distribution Training Opinions Trust Marketing 100

Chris Koch

MAY 21, 2010

The question that we’re asking Facebook is the question that we should be asking ourselves in our marketing: Do we really need all this information? of the time any link that you put in a tweet is going to lead to accessible content. The expectation on Twitter is that 99.9% So take my comments with a grain of salt.

Privacy 100

Privacy B2B Marketing Lead Ranking B2B 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. It was great getting the perspective of marketers outside of technology. When we surveyed B2B marketers last year, 50% said they do not have a social media policy. Marketers can handle all that stuff.

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. It was great getting the perspective of marketers outside of technology. When we surveyed B2B marketers last year, 50% said they do not have a social media policy. Marketers can handle all that stuff.

Social Media 100

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Media Peer-to-peer 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. At the other end of the spectrum are the brochures that masquerade as idea marketing by making the offering descriptions longer and the production values higher. But hold the beverages.

Work Management 100

Work Management Thought Leadership Marketing Management Paper 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 16, 2011

0000000000000000001% response rate it takes to do direct commercial marketing via the telephone these days. It got me thinking, what if a similar easy button comes along for online marketing? Yet even in B2B, we have a growing concern over privacy in lead management. Pushing the easy button. Privacy is a concern in B2B, too.

B2B 100

B2B Privacy Click Rate Internet Marketing 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 16, 2011

0000000000000000001% response rate it takes to do direct commercial marketing via the telephone these days. It got me thinking, what if a similar easy button comes along for online marketing? Yet even in B2B, we have a growing concern over privacy in lead management. Pushing the easy button. Privacy is a concern in B2B, too.

B2B 100

B2B Privacy Click Rate Internet Marketing 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 17, 2010

All of our talk about marketers becoming publishers is incomplete. Marketers, meanwhile, didn’t have a wall, so they filled their content with self-aggrandizing references to their own products and services that pissed off readers and sent them to other sources for advice. Marketing through association. Let me explain.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Advertising Agencies Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 21, 2009

Survey internal sales and marketing staff, customers, target markets, and influencers to determine what they are looking for. Professional services firms expect their consultants to be thought leaders and that expectation flows through everything those firms do, from recruiting, to training, to marketing.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Network Marketing B2B Sales 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 21, 2009

Survey internal sales and marketing staff, customers, target markets, and influencers to determine what they are looking for. Professional services firms expect their consultants to be thought leaders and that expectation flows through everything those firms do, from recruiting, to training, to marketing.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Network Marketing Paper 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 5, 2010

And they both lead to content that benefits from being mobile. Creating a mobile application that leads to static content on a website isn’t going to build much interest or loyalty because there’s no real urgency to connect. Why B2B marketing will become more visual, vocal, and mobile (christopherakoch.com).

Wiki 100

Wiki Urgency Marketing Mobile Marketing Content 100

Chris Koch

MAY 1, 2009

Right now, it seems that the gap between sales and marketing is mostly papered over with technology. For example, the trend towards creating a closed-loop lead generation and nurturing process between marketing and sales is a positive step, but it seems like a bridge across the chasm rather than a true route to collaboration.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Cross-Selling B2B Sales Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 15, 2010

We needed to hear from marketers who were out there day-to-day listening to CIOs’ problems and aspirations. Back then what marketers had to say was all about their offerings. Marketers and salespeople didn’t have to do much coaxing to get CIOs to buy, so why get complicated? But mostly we were. And why not? And why not?

Social Media 100

Social Media Work Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 22, 2010

I wish I could say that social media leads to sales. 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. And it leads back to the problem we have with PR.

Social Media 100

Social Media ROI Lead Ranking RSS 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 11, 2011

There’s lots of talk out there these days about the need for a technology guru within the B2B marketing department. Maybe I’m splitting hairs here, but I wonder about the long-term need for a marketing technologist. In the short term, I think marketing has a lot of catching up to do in terms of technology.

Analytics 100

Analytics Paid Search Agency Marketing Management Loyalty 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 8, 2010

Toyota’s market share wasn’t built by Toyota’s marketing; it was built by Consumer Reports. Using ideas from the learning network, marketing needs to develop content. Marketing needs professional content developers who know how to collaborate with thought leaders to develop clear, compelling packages. What do you think?

Social Media 100

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership Media 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 6, 2009

One of the great trends were seeing at ITSMA is increased automation of the lead process. It’s great because the software acts as a battering ram for alignment between marketing and sales. That metric is going to be critically important as we automate the lead process because nurturing is marketing’s special sauce.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Planning Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 6, 2009

One of the great trends were seeing at ITSMA is increased automation of the lead process. It’s great because the software acts as a battering ram for alignment between marketing and sales. That metric is going to be critically important as we automate the lead process because nurturing is marketing’s special sauce.

Planning 100

Planning B2B Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

I’ve been working with my colleagues at ITSMA on another survey on social media for B2B marketers that I hope you’ll take by going here. B2B marketing lays the path to a sales discussion and supports relationships with existing customers. The trust leads to a more personal relationship and hopefully, a purchase. Tweet This Post.

Social Media 100

Social Media Marketing Strategy Marketing & Strategy B2B Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

Women hold a strong place in Iroquois society, leading individual clans within tribes, helping determine chiefs, and holding veto power over treaties and declarations of war (the Iroquois declared war on Germany in both world wars). They don’t want duplicative or conflicting messages coming from different parts of the marketing organization.

De-duplication 100

De-duplication Paid Search Agency Companies Wikipedia 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 12, 2010

Social media experts often chide marketers about control. 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. Forrester loses IP.

Social Media 100

Social Media Forrester Media Transparency 100

Chris Koch

JULY 16, 2010

I’ve been reading through applications for ITSMA’s Marketing Excellence Awards this week and I have been blown away by the quality of innovation and creativity that’s going on out there among our members (and other B2B companies)—I mean, I’m talking about a quantum leap over what I’ve seen in the three years that I’ve been mingling with these folks.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer Wikipedia 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 31, 2014

The moment Fallon says he had been waiting for all his life came when he was just 24: an audition for Lorne Michaels , the creator and lead producer of SNL. Right now, the practice is to simply excerpt bits from their shows in “best of” compilations and market them. Latest Post Marketing Strategy' The Only Job He Ever Wanted.

Wikipedia 100

Wikipedia Youtube Profiling Video Marketing 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 22, 2011

This shift in innovation has big implications for marketing. ITSMA’s social media research (free excerpt available) shows that marketing is responsible for monitoring social media and for training, governing, and supporting the organization in using social media. Marketing is in a similar position today to where IT was in the 90s.

Enterprise Management 100

Enterprise Management Work Management Marketing Management Social Media 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 13, 2010

But we’re in the era of social media now, so there are breadcrumbs in the forest that lead us to a fuller explanation of who Slater is and why he did what he did. Following the trail of bread crumbs leads us to a caring, thoughtful person. So what can we take away from all this as B2B marketing professionals? What do you think?

Social Media 100

Social Media Media SME B2B 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 25, 2011

I confirmed something I’ve been hearing in my research on idea marketing over the past month: idea marketing requires a deep commitment not just from marketing but from the entire organization. This process is usually facilitated by marketing. Eric Wittlake makes this point in a blog post this week and I heartily agree.

Social Media 100

Social Media Organization Peer-to-peer SME 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 3, 2014

The franchise leadership also invested in marketing not just Man U but football itself as the true global sport. Brand, Reputation, and Positioning Latest Post Marketing Strategy Dallas Cowboys England Fantasy Sports Trade Association Liverpool Liverpool F.C. Premier League sports marketing' What Happens When You Start to Lose?

Planning 100

Planning Paid Search Agency Work Management Marketing & Strategy 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 9, 2010

Here are a few to consider: Lead a niche. A former colleague that I really admire managed to mention his 30 year experience in marketing into the first minute of conversation with anyone new. Tags: Blogging B2B marketing Blog LinkedIn marketing Social Media social media management Subject matter expert. Show your age.

SME 100

SME Aggregators Blogger Social Media 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 21, 2011

At ITSMA , we’ve been busy preparing for our annual State of the Marketing Profession briefing next Tuesday. It’s where we introduce some of the top findings from our annual budget survey of marketers. So we spend weeks leading up to the briefing arguing about what the numbers actually mean and what marketers should do.

Social Media 100

Social Media Budget Programs Paper Stats 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 5, 2011

The marketer in charge of the company’s social media effort gave me a clear edict: “Look, I don’t want you focusing on Facebook, okay? Every time we talk about it, we have an endless argument that leads nowhere.”. What is B2B marketing all about? Is it any wonder that B2C marketing techniques dominate?

Facebook 100

Facebook B2B Marketing B2B Thought Leadership B2B 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 2, 2011

If you had asked me a few years ago whether the traditional marketing campaign had any place in social media I would have scoffed. Just more evidence of marketing’s old-fashioned, ADHD-driven, love-’em-and-leave-’em approach. These campaigns were the winners of this year’s ITSMA Marketing Excellence Awards. I still believe that.

Social Media 100

Social Media Campaigns B2B Thought Leadership Media 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 2, 2011

If you had asked me a few years ago whether the traditional marketing campaign had any place in social media I would have scoffed. Just more evidence of marketing’s old-fashioned, ADHD-driven, love-’em-and-leave-’em approach. These campaigns were the winners of this year’s ITSMA Marketing Excellence Awards. I still believe that.

Social Media 100

Social Media Campaigns B2B Thought Leadership Media 100

Chris Koch

JULY 16, 2009

I was researching the ITSMA archives this week to see what we’ve written about customer councils over the years and discovered some great advice that I pass along here: Research what customers would like to see from a council—make a few calls to lead customers before getting started. Market change. Policy change. Organizational change.

Peer-to-peer 100

Peer-to-peer Practices Thought Leadership Best Practices 100