Chris Koch

AUGUST 21, 2009

These are the key components: Install a lead tracking and nurturing system. Marketers can use the consumption of thought leadership to track the readiness of prospects to buy if they have a system for tracking a prospect’s activities. Get agreement with sales on a sales-ready lead. What do you think? Tweet This Post.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Network Marketing Paper 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 21, 2009

These are the key components: Install a lead tracking and nurturing system. Marketers can use the consumption of thought leadership to track the readiness of prospects to buy if they have a system for tracking a prospect’s activities. Get agreement with sales on a sales-ready lead. What do you think?

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Network Marketing B2B Sales 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. Where I’d Like To Be 10 Years From Now. Why Forbes.

Disintermediation 100

Disintermediation B2B Marketing Marketing Management Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

MAY 21, 2010

Especially as social media takes off, we’re finding that prospects and customers have less and less patience for giving us that information. of the time any link that you put in a tweet is going to lead to accessible content. Customers are less willing to give up information. The expectation on Twitter is that 99.9%

Privacy 100

Privacy B2B Marketing Lead Ranking B2B 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 11, 2011

Most companies do not yet have closed-loop lead management processes supported by systems, for example. We need to use analytics to quantify and manage how fast we move prospects through the buying process and to increase loyalty and trust after they’ve bought from us. So we need some important systems installed in the short-term.

Analytics 100

Analytics Paid Search Agency Marketing Management Loyalty 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

JUNE 5, 2009

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. The company took a different approach with customers and prospects, saying, “We’re a new Oracle.”. Use research to understand the context. Analysts and influencers.

Paid Search Agency 100

Paid Search Agency Companies Work Management Ethics 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. Some management consulting companies have the commitment to ideas baked into the culture—you simply will not survive as a consultant if you do not create ideas that lead to new IP.

Social Media 100

Social Media Organization Peer-to-peer SME 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. It takes time, money, talent, and innovation to create good information. Forrester loses IP.

Social Media 100

Social Media Forrester Media Transparency 100

Chris Koch

MAY 1, 2009

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. Salespeople may have this kind of broader perspective, but more than likely they don’t have time to gather it.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Cross-Selling B2B Sales Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

What’s been proven to work in B2B is for marketers to reach out to prospects with smart, engaging, educational content that leads to trust. The trust leads to a more personal relationship and hopefully, a purchase. 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

DECEMBER 2, 2011

If all you do is run contests and campaigns on Facebook, how can you expect to hold onto prospects over the long term? Can campaigns coexist comfortably with a thought leadership lead nurturing strategy? Win or lose, after the contest is over, they’d ditch you as quickly as a toddler dispatching a fistful of broccoli.

Social Media 100

Social Media Campaigns B2B Thought Leadership Media 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 2, 2011

If all you do is run contests and campaigns on Facebook, how can you expect to hold onto prospects over the long term? Can campaigns coexist comfortably with a thought leadership lead nurturing strategy? Win or lose, after the contest is over, they’d ditch you as quickly as a toddler dispatching a fistful of broccoli.

Social Media 100

Social Media Campaigns B2B Thought Leadership Media 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 4, 2011

But most marketing organizations don’t measure relevance; they measure output—whether it’s in leads or downloads. And this potential windfall isn’t limited to new prospects. When asked to name the number one factor in choosing a provider, variations on the “know me” theme came through 42% of the time. Measure relevance, not output.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Advertising Agencies B2B Marketing Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

JULY 22, 2011

All of which is a lead-in to this week’s entry, which is what we as B2B marketers can learn from health-care marketing. Many of us in B2B can be proud of how we educate our customers and prospects on the business issues they face—from current regulatory changes to future “sea changes.” I’m a goner. A marketing geek. (I

Work Management 100

Work Management Marketing Management Social Media B2B Marketing 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 5, 2010

Having been a journalist for years, I know that these acronyms lead even the most feeble-minded of us journos to the next obvious question: What do you mean when you say (insert acronym here)? I think that this definition will lead to the perpetuation of the brochure-on-steroids interpretation of thought leadership.

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. But marketers must lead and support SMEs in the development and publishing processes. Companies and customers and prospects will have a more continuous relationship than they do today.

Thought Leadership 100

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