Chris Koch

AUGUST 21, 2009

Recently, I was asked by a former ITSMA client to help put together a plan for a thought leadership program for a B2B technology company that sells both products and services. Survey internal sales and marketing staff, customers, target markets, and influencers to determine what they are looking for.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Network Marketing B2B Sales 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 5, 2010

This usually means an avalanche of poorly written, completely untargeted press releases, and interview pitches that show no understanding of the target influencer’s publication or audience. The pool of targets is shrinking. They didn’t coach CIOs to talk only about how they used the products and services of the company.

PR 100

PR Press Paid Search Agency Lead Ranking 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

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. For these target executives, peer relationships are everything, but for now anyway, most of those relationships are happening offline.

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

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. For these target executives, peer relationships are everything, but for now anyway, most of those relationships are happening offline.

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 17, 2010

Publishers (the good ones, anyway) gave some of the most prominent pages in their newspapers and magazines to advertisers in return for a lot of cash, access to a targeted group of customers, and editorial independence from advertiser influence. The best example of this that I can think of is IBM’s Smarter Planet.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Advertising Agencies Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 11, 2009

Our target audience is ready. But video case studies and interactive product demos—even for B2B services— are going to become more popular on mobile devices. For B2B marketers, this means that video and interactivity are something we need to be thinking about and doing now. Sure, there are technical issues.

Mobile Marketing 100

Mobile Marketing B2B Marketing B2B Storytelling 100

Chris Koch

MAY 14, 2010

We’re seeing companies use social media to bring customers into the product and service development processes to collaborate on new ideas and improvements. Our subject matter experts (SMEs) are talking to customers. We’re seeing HR departments using social media for recruiting.

Organic Leads 100

Organic Leads Social Media Social Marketing Organization 100

Chris Koch

JULY 16, 2010

For example, in the three categories I’ve looked at so far (there are six categories altogether), we have one company using analytics to predict customer buying patterns (and this ain’t diapers or laundry detergent, ladies and gents—we’re talking six-figure jumbles of complex products and services here).

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer Wikipedia 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 5, 2010

It may look better and read better than a brochure, but it’s still a brochure because it emphasizes our products and services over the needs of the people we are trying to reach. It presupposes that we have something to talk about besides our products and services. are target customers most interested in? What a mouthful.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Gartner Planning 100