So, nothing personal.  By now, many of you are familiar with MLC’s profile of Hill-Rom’s event marketing strategy.  It’s a great approach to succeeding in a tradeshow environment.  for the uninitiated, it does not involve clowns,  golf simulators or 80’s cover bands). With Hill-Rom as a jumping off point, what are the key criteria for successful events?  And by “events,” we’re being inclusive to any B2B event – could be a tradeshow, a proprietary event, a virtual event, etc.  Below, we’ve compiled these commandments of Event Marketing: Raise the IQ of your customers. Disinvite your reps. MORE >>

The result was that the meeting extended over lunch and in the afternoon the manager introduced the rep to a university colleague as a consultant who was there to help, not a sales person.  It’s day two of CEB’s 2012 Sales and Marketing Summit.  We’ve just had a hugely informative panel discussion on building a commercial insight engine with Lori Morell and Fran Walsh from Kimberly Clark-Professional as well as Keith Clements and Paul Brown from DENTSPLY. How did you get started with commercial insights?  . Are there any low-effort ways to come up with commercial insights? It hadn’t.  MORE >>

Employees could interact with the personas personally. It’s almost time to say goodbye to 2011, and to things that worried us this year. Judging from our conversations, many of you spent the year tweaking your segmentation strategies. If only segmenting was as simple as they teach in Marketing 101! The problem marketers face with textbook-ish methods of segmentation is that they’re, well, suited to the textbook world. While segmentation can be approached in many ways , some of MLC’s members have evolved best-in-class winning segmentation strategies that have propelled them to success. MORE >>

We’re asked about VOC and customer understanding by B2B marketers than any other topic and it’s the subject of this year’s B2B research (which you should absolutely register to see in-person! ). Voice of the customer efforts are all the rage in B2B marketing circles these days. Marketers seem to understand that customer knowledge is the key to all sorts of Good Stuff in the B2B space – commercial teaching approaches, innovation, and improvements to the customer experience all rest on gaining actionable customer knowledge. MORE >>

Stay tuned for additional updates and, if you are lucky enough to be here too, drop me a line so we can meet in person. Greetings from sunny Las Vegas. Despite the pull of the pool and the blackjack tables, I am currently sitting in the Grand Ballroom in the famous Bellagio hotel at the second annual Sales and Marketing Summit hosted by the Sales and Marketing Practice of the Corporate Executive Board. More than 400 members are here with us to learn more about how to get “Inside the Customer’s Purchase Decision” – this year’s theme. No, that isn’t a typo – rats. Enter the rats. MORE >>