Chris Koch

APRIL 2, 2010

This may be the ultimate question in B2B, especially as we struggle to integrate social media into the overall marketing mix. 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.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership B2B Marketing Marketing Budget Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 30, 2010

For marketers considering creating mobile device apps, the bar has been set very high. So how are we as marketers supposed to compete with apps like these? Mobile is going to become an important part of our marketing, whether we like it or not. I think that’s how we have to view mobile apps for B2B marketing.

Mobile Marketing 100

Mobile Marketing Mobile Advertising Paid Search Agency Wiki 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. Liverpool FC maintains 17 local language Twitter accounts. Brand, Reputation, and Positioning Latest Post Marketing Strategy Dallas Cowboys England Fantasy Sports Trade Association Liverpool Liverpool F.C.

Planning 100

Planning Paid Search Agency Work Management Marketing & Strategy 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 strategy is a marketing strategy and the metrics should happen across everything you do.

Social Media 100

Social Media Marketing Strategy Marketing & Strategy B2B Thought Leadership 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? What is B2B marketing all about? I keep waiting for Facebook to buy LinkedIn or Twitter and just put an end to the business vs. consumer distinction. But let’s put this all in context.

Facebook 100

Facebook B2B Marketing B2B Thought Leadership B2B 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 26, 2009

When I despair at ever mastering all the social media tools that exist out there, I remind myself (as I hope you will) that at its core social media is all about communication and that marketers are all expert communicators. My job is to learn about how to become a better B2B marketer and to share what I learn with others.

Social Media 100

Social Media Social Marketing B2B Marketing Personalization 100

Chris Koch

MAY 14, 2010

Social media creates the need for marketing to lead within the organization. We mean that within the organization the leadership of social media is falling to marketing. We think that’s because social media is seen primarily as a tool for marketing. We think that’s because social media is seen primarily as a tool for marketing.

Organic Leads 100

Organic Leads Social Media Social Marketing Organization 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 14, 2011

In three plus years of tweeting, I’ve picked up what I perceive to be the general etiquette for engaging on Twitter. I’ve also done research asking B2B marketers how they engage and how they educate their employees and SMEs to engage. Lots of people seem to be having Twitter identity crises these days. I don’t seem to be alone.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Twitter Social Networks 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 14, 2011

In three plus years of tweeting, I’ve picked up what I perceive to be the general etiquette for engaging on Twitter. I’ve also done research asking B2B marketers how they engage and how they educate their employees and SMEs to engage. Lots of people seem to be having Twitter identity crises these days. I don’t seem to be alone.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Twitter Social Networks 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 16, 2010

Marketing owns social media management. In our survey, we asked, “In your company, is marketing the catalyst for social media being used by others in the company (product development, HR, etc.)?” Will social become a silo within marketing? This has big implications for how we organize marketing. That’s right.

Social Media 100

Social Media Work Management Marketing Management Social Marketing 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 11, 2009

And that is important for marketers. One of the great lures of Twitter is that we know that it is always changing. Would you dream of Twittering without a profile photo or image? Would you dream of Twittering without a profile photo or image? Twitter is every bit as visual as it is textual. What does it mean?

Mobile Marketing 100

Mobile Marketing B2B Marketing B2B Storytelling 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 23, 2011

For example, just when I was lamenting having to do over all the work I’ve done to build up a Twitter community with some true interaction and conversation in G+, along comes a browser extension called SGPlus that lets you post on G+ and share it across Twitter and Facebook at the same time. Twitter killed them all.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Social Networks B2B Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 23, 2011

For example, just when I was lamenting having to do over all the work I’ve done to build up a Twitter community with some true interaction and conversation in G+, along comes a browser extension called SGPlus that lets you post on G+ and share it across Twitter and Facebook at the same time. Twitter killed them all.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Social Networks B2B Thought Leadership 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

JANUARY 22, 2010

We track the marketing mix (including PR) over time against trends in sales. 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. Use Twitter for blog PR. Twitter is the logical front end to a blog post.

Social Media 100

Social Media ROI Lead Ranking RSS 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 4, 2012

First, because I’ve left ITSMA and joined SAP , where I will focus on marketing the good ideas of the many subject matter experts there. I won’t be focusing on B2B marketing in the broadest sense anymore; I’ll be narrowing things to idea marketing (and the role that social media play in it). It’s bastardized.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Social Media Twitter 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 12, 2010

Get them twittering. Twitter’s viral relationship model means that your subject matter experts can build up their networks of influence much faster than through a press release. The thinking has to be from the mind of the subject matter expert, not the ghost writer. Facilitation. Tweet This Post.

PR 100

PR Peer-to-peer Press Public Relations 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 18, 2009

Or will it be Twitter by a nose? For marketers trying to figure out where to put their resources into social media marketing, the horse race looks more like a crapshoot. Then, and only then, can you begin to figure out their networks of relationships—the people they know that you would like to know (and market to).

Social Media 100

Social Media Viral Marketing Tools Media 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 18, 2009

Or will it be Twitter by a nose? For marketers trying to figure out where to put their resources into social media marketing, the horse race looks more like a crapshoot. Then, and only then, can you begin to figure out their networks of relationships—the people they know that you would like to know (and market to).

Social Media 100

Social Media Viral Marketing Tools Media 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 15, 2011

Social media (along with skimpy marketing budgets) are causing a transformation in marketing to a degree that we haven’t seen for a lifetime. Think of me as your grief counselor for good ol’ message-based marketing. Another marketing channel on top of my existing workload, with no extra budget or headcount? Bargaining.

Social Media 100

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Media Wikipedia 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 12, 2009

Lots of statistical analysis about the relative growth rates of Facebook and Twitter and the slowing of uptake for both. There won’t be nearly as much to link to through Twitter in the coming years, and that’s the revolutionary subtext that’s going on behind the evolution of Web 2.0.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Paid Search Agency Viral Marketing 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 25, 2009

To be successful with social media marketing, we are going to have to become social media guinea pigs. That’s why it’s important for us to start building our expertise in social media today, even if social media isn’t yet at the top of our marketing agenda (and our research shows that among B2B marketers, it is not).

Social Media 100

Social Media Paid Search Agency Social Marketing B2B Marketing 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. Let them win stuff.

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. Let them win stuff.

Social Media 100

Social Media Campaigns B2B Thought Leadership Media 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. Now that may be due in part to the fact that most B2B marketers have only recently begun using Web 2.0 Check out the B2B Marketing Zone. In our recent Web 2.0 efforts so far (by 67% of respondents).

Web 2.0 100

Web 2.0 B2B Thought Leadership Ideal Customer Profiles Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 19, 2010

I think it’s important to try to do this if we’re going to get social media integrated with the rest of marketing. The next step is to categorize how we use social media in these different areas and how our actions hook back into the rest of marketing. Promote other types of marketing. Pretty obvious, right? Seed discussions.

Social Media 100

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

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 30, 2009

We just wrapped up our ITSMA Annual Marketing Conference this week and the strongest current driving the river of conversation was social media. Most of ITSMA’s clients are B2B marketers from big technology companies that sell big, complex products, services, and solutions. This has big implications for marketers.

Social Media 100

Social Media Peer-to-peer Enterprise Management Media 100

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. So there is a price for marketing content. Image via Wikipedia.

Lead Ranking 100

Lead Ranking Lead Scoring B2B Thought Leadership Mobile Advertising 100

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. So there is a price for marketing content. Image via Wikipedia.

Lead Ranking 100

Lead Ranking Lead Scoring B2B Thought Leadership Mobile Advertising 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 25, 2010

Reading these got me thinking that we probably need to rethink the concepts of introversion and extroversion in social media marketing. Twitter is like a virtual table in the bar that everyone is dancing on. I think for marketers, the issue is less about whether our customers will be more extroverted online—they already are.

Social Media 100

Social Media Peer-to-peer Media Wikipedia 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 PR 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

Despite all the breathless hype about social media these days, what I hear most from B2B marketers is frustration. Most of the marketers I talk to are trying to reach a few top executives in big organizations who make buying decisions about big, complex products and services. If you’re strapped for resources (who isn’t?)

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

Despite all the breathless hype about social media these days, what I hear most from B2B marketers is frustration. Most of the marketers I talk to are trying to reach a few top executives in big organizations who make buying decisions about big, complex products and services. If you’re strapped for resources (who isn’t?)

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 8, 2010

Toyota’s market share wasn’t built by Toyota’s marketing; it was built by Consumer Reports. Whether it’s blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, or private communities that we build ourselves, the common thread is that by focusing on learning we build and retain buyers’ interest. And learning is integral to buying—especially in B2B.

Social Media 100

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership Media 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 28, 2010

We all know twitter can’t start revolutions or substitute for gazing meaningfully into someone’s eyes over dinner, but what I don’t understand is why the critics can’t see a link between the bonds that we form on social media and the deeper links that we forge offline. General Marketing. Interactions substitute for relationships.

Planning 100

Planning Work Management Paid Search Agency B2B Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

MAY 20, 2011

Many marketers involved in social media management tell me that they struggle to get their subject matter experts engaged in social media. Marketers need to facilitate a process for internal development of ideas and for external feedback. Marketers need to help create that culture in the company by facilitating the idea process.

Social Media 100

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Media Thought Leadership 100