worthy example is Dow Corning, which found itself under huge price pressure, as the silicone category grew commoditized.  To meet the market demand for lower prices, Dow Corning launched in 2002 an entirely new brand, called Xiameter , where customers could buy trailer-loads of certain products at a 10-15% discount through a newly built e-commerce engine.   Here are some tips: Review your customer segments and product lines for e-commerce potential.  'Photo credit: Wikipedia. Time for another look.  Today, Xiameter represents 40% of Dow Corning’s $6 billion in sales. MORE >>

Increased access to information often means customers approach sellers later in the purchase process. To avoid price negotiations, sellers must teach customers about an unknown problem or opportunity in the customer’s business that the supplier is uniquely positioned to solve. In an effort to identify a differentiator within a commoditized market, DuPont conducted a survey of its customers to determine what different segments value in sales interaction. Price sensitive customers were served primarily through inside sales. MORE >>

  As is often seen pricing, billing, and implementation questions can get routed to the “back office” and can be a road filled with craters if support is not designed with buyer experience in mind.   How many times after a purchase decision is made in a B2B context has the implementation experience felt starkly different than those leading up to the decision?  Image by david_shankbone via Flickr.   Most revealing was how many phases of production took place and how each phase was an experiential process in of itself.  Research. Assess. Support. MORE >>

Serious marketing of the new edition is yet to begin, but anyone considering purchase of a marketing automation system can buy the VEST now at the www.raabguide.com Web site. We distinguish four segments: micro-business with under $5 million revenue; small business with $5 to $50 million revenue, mid-size business with $50 to $500 million revenue, and large business with over $500 million revenue. suspect the increase is less the result of firmer pricing than of broader product lines that let the vendors sell more to each customer. come at these figures in two ways. MORE >>

From the ability to browse, locate user reviews, compare pricing and quickly purchase products or services, these companies have the online experience down to a science. There is obvious technical complexity built into each of the processes I mentioned - from the underlying marketing database, customer segmentation and large-scale marketing automation systems in place. But last night, my husband and I went to purchase something from said company; we looked at the information online - reviews, pricing, comparisons - and made a decision to proceed with the purchase. MORE >>