More often than not, the content we’re churning out as B2B marketers serves only to  add  to the noise your buyers have to filter through to find true insight; in a perverse sense, doing content marketing – at least in the way most companies do it – actually  hurts your chances of influencing the buying process. And It’s extremely difficult to tie to ROI, particularly in industries with long sales cycles or intensive sales processes. So, at this point, I think most B2B marketers are sold on the value of content marketing. At least, so the story goes. MORE >>

In response, the company created a scorecard that boiled down the brand promise into discrete employee behaviors, incenting the front line to comply in the process. They used a lean Six Sigma process to arrive at a manageable number of insightful metrics aligned with broader firm performance, leading to higher levels of senior-staff buy-in. And so, we measure everything – campaign effectiveness, brand investments, even the internal operations of the marketing function. Unsurprisingly, MLC members have come up with a number of ways to measure marketing’s effectiveness. MORE >>

With that in mind, the MLC B2B team decided to probe into the customer decision process earlier this year provide some guidance to marketers trying to regain influence.  Among the key findings we uncovered in our quantitative survey of 1,900 B2B customers is the fact that, on average, customers are 57% of the way through the purchase process before they allow Sales to play a real part in their purchase decision. The past few years tested the mettle of many B2B marketers.  Economic woes brought buying to a grinding halt.  So what are Marketers to do?  Can’t get away?  MORE >>

Marketing will be able to accurately predict customers’ purchasing needs and stage of the buying process early on, before Sales reps’ conversations with customers. tradeshow, web, direct), but rather by customer needs at least partly aligned to where customers are in the buying process. Happy New Year!  December and January are common times for people to reflect on the year that was and make predictions about the year that will be.  The B2B prognosticators have been out in full force.  But what do those in the trenches see on the horizon for the coming few years?  MORE >>

Are innovation processes at your company characterized by incremental, small-bore changes to existing products? What makes brands vital, and what makes consumers associate particular brands with innovation? This question recently struck me as I read Roobini Aruleswaran’s great piece about Bose. She really captures what makes Bose a great brand in her first few paragraphs, as she retells her first encounter with their audio products, but her deep look into the company’s drivers of innovation is worth a peek. Or do you consistently push the envelope by creating new categories? MORE >>