Chris Koch

AUGUST 21, 2009

Marketers can use the consumption of thought leadership to track the readiness of prospects to buy if they have a system for tracking a prospect’s activities. There needs to be a smooth hand off of prospects between marketing and sales for thought leadership to have the fullest possible impact on a sale. What do you think?

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Network Marketing B2B Sales 100

Chris Koch

JULY 24, 2009

There needs to be agreement on when and how a lead will come back to marketing if sales doesn’t pursue it or if the prospect turns out not to be interested. The system needs to be interactive with both prospects and salespeople so that they can rate and comment on the content. Lead nurturing. What do your process and system look like?

Top of Funnel 100

Top of Funnel Lead Scoring Lead Ranking Marketing Automation Services 100

Chris Koch

JULY 24, 2009

There needs to be agreement on when and how a lead will come back to marketing if sales doesn’t pursue it or if the prospect turns out not to be interested. The system needs to be interactive with both prospects and salespeople so that they can rate and comment on the content. Lead nurturing. What do your process and system look like?

Lead Qualification 100

Lead Qualification Marketing Automation Services Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 26, 2010

These people are prospects, not leads. The way we turn prospects into leads is to gain their trust. These people are not leads—they are not ready to be contacted by anyone. But they may be open to building a relationship that could someday lead to a sale. The trust leads to a more personal relationship and hopefully, a purchase.

Social Media 100

Social Media Lead Generation B2B Thought Leadership Generation 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 5, 2010

It is a process for developing and disseminating ideas through various channels that build a relationship with prospects and customers. Marketers can use the consumption of idea marketing to track the readiness of prospects to buy if they have a system for tracking a prospect’s activities.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Gartner Planning 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 11, 2011

We need to use analytics to quantify and manage how fast we move prospects through the buying process and to increase loyalty and trust after they’ve bought from us. We need to connect the analytical dots. I think the larger and more long-term need is for marketing to become data driven.

Analytics 100

Analytics Paid Search Agency Marketing Management Loyalty 100

Chris Koch

JULY 31, 2009

You need a closed-loop lead process that tracks prospect activity from beginning to end (and back again, in the case of lead nurturing) that is supported by a system (see this post for more on that). Marketing and sales are both part of the same process: raising revenue. Measure CPOD instead. Create a unified lead process.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency Work Management B2B Sales 100

Chris Koch

JULY 31, 2009

You need a closed-loop lead process that tracks prospect activity from beginning to end (and back again, in the case of lead nurturing) that is supported by a system (see this post for more on that). Marketing and sales are both part of the same process: raising revenue. Measure CPOD instead. Create a unified lead process.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency Work Management B2B Sales 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 18, 2012

I’m excited about the prospect of not just presenting ideas to the SCN community but also in building ideas with this community. It’s not about the style, it’s about the ideas. One of the best aspects of social media is the opportunity to put ideas to the community and gather feedback.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Communities Transparency 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

For these marketers, the pool of customers and prospects is small and many of them do not want to engage publicly in social media or are simply ignoring it altogether. Even if it doesn’t seem that your customers and prospects are actively conversing on the social web, you need to confirm that fact.

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

For these marketers, the pool of customers and prospects is small and many of them do not want to engage publicly in social media or are simply ignoring it altogether. Even if it doesn’t seem that your customers and prospects are actively conversing on the social web, you need to confirm that fact.

Social Media 100

Social Media Allocation Media Marketing & Strategy 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 12, 2010

We know that in B2B, customers and prospects respond best to ideas, news, research, and how-to—not sales pitches. Social media is a channel for raising the level of intimacy that we have with customers and prospects with that content. Social media reduces the incremental cost of content.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Thought Leadership Work Management 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 25, 2011

In other words, unless we become idea organizations, we’re not going to have much to say to customers, prospects, and influencers in social media. But then this got me to thinking, without a commitment to ideas throughout the organization, all these dollars we’re starting to spend on social media will be wasted.

Social Media 100

Social Media Organization Peer-to-peer SME 100

Chris Koch

MAY 21, 2010

Especially as social media takes off, we’re finding that prospects and customers have less and less patience for giving us that information. For Facebook, it’s personal information that advertisers can use to target us. Customers are less willing to give up information. The expectation on Twitter is that 99.9%

Privacy 100

Privacy B2B Marketing Lead Ranking B2B 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 30, 2010

Our customers and prospects—especially the younger ones—will be looking at smartphones as one of their primary computing platforms—if not the primary platform. Do you have situations where customers and prospects feel they might miss something by being disconnected from you even for a short while? Continuity.

Mobile Marketing 100

Mobile Marketing Mobile Advertising Paid Search Agency Wiki 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 24, 2010

These words, mostly in the form of brochures, specification sheets, and boilerplate PowerPoint slides, helped salespeople—especially those new to the company—get a conversation going with prospects. But then the internet came along. Don’t worry, I’m not going to say, “and then everything changed,” because it didn’t.

Peer-to-peer 100

Peer-to-peer Wiki Marketing Management Internet Marketing 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 8, 2011

I speak to many regulated B2B companies who (still) don’t believe their employees can engage in uncontrolled conversations with customers and prospects. Companies need to give themselves permission to engage in social media, both within marketing and in the broader culture of the company. Internal social media is thriving.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Paid Search Agency PR 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 22, 2010

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. And if that’s true, then we should try to increase the volume and quality of interactions with have with customers and prospects through social media, no?

Social Media 100

Social Media ROI Lead Ranking RSS 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 18, 2011

Our prospects and customers want us to cut through the noise of social media just as they’ve wanted us to cut through the noise of every other communications channel that came before. Meanwhile, trust in “credentialed experts” and “company technical specialists” is rising—we’re getting so desperate we even want to hear from the CEO.

Peer-to-peer 100

Peer-to-peer Thought Leadership Social Media Storytelling 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 2, 2011

If all you do is run contests and campaigns on Facebook, how can you expect to hold onto prospects over the long term? Win or lose, after the contest is over, they’d ditch you as quickly as a toddler dispatching a fistful of broccoli. After all, “engaging” is one of the four components of social media management.

Social Media 100

Social Media Campaigns B2B Thought Leadership Media 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 2, 2011

If all you do is run contests and campaigns on Facebook, how can you expect to hold onto prospects over the long term? Win or lose, after the contest is over, they’d ditch you as quickly as a toddler dispatching a fistful of broccoli. After all, “engaging” is one of the four components of social media management.

Social Media 100

Social Media Campaigns B2B Thought Leadership Media 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 19, 2010

Monitoring can be used to discover customers and prospects that are most relevant for your offerings by observing the patterns and topics of their conversations. By pushing SMEs to engage with the target audience in these ways, you help them build up trust and loyalty among customers and prospects. Develop a target audience.

Social Media 100

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

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 12, 2010

The experts say that in the new era of social media, marketers need to stop delivering tightly-scripted, one-way messages and start engaging in uncontrolled, transparent conversations with customers and prospects wherever those conversations happen. Look, I love Forrester.

Social Media 100

Social Media Forrester Media Transparency 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 4, 2011

And this potential windfall isn’t limited to new prospects. But if providers go farther and use thought leadership to help companies clarify their business needs and suggest solutions, 30% of respondents said they are more likely to choose those providers. Existing customers are also looking for new ideas.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Advertising Agencies B2B Marketing Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

MAY 22, 2009

Customers and prospects will be anxious to hear whether they were right to place their trust in the brand. We agree that there are a few steps that you have to take right away before making any drastic decisions about the ultimate fate of the brand: 1. Respond quickly. Everything that a brand stands for is up for grabs during a crisis.

Brand Identity 100

Brand Identity Branding Tagging Transparency 100

Chris Koch

MAY 1, 2009

However, they know (or can be convinced) that having this deeper level of information will enable them to have more intelligent conversations with executives at prospect companies, spot additional opportunities to add value, and build more trusted relationships.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Cross-Selling B2B Sales Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 23, 2011

It’s way too early to make a call, so I’m not going to presume to know G+’s prospects for success (especially when it hasn’t even been officially launched), but there are a few things that the rise of a possible new giant in social networking points out: Social networks are porous.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Social Networks B2B Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 23, 2011

It’s way too early to make a call, so I’m not going to presume to know G+’s prospects for success (especially when it hasn’t even been officially launched), but there are a few things that the rise of a possible new giant in social networking points out: Social networks are porous.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Social Networks B2B Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

What’s been proven to work in B2B is for marketers to reach out to prospects with smart, engaging, educational content that leads to trust. It’s hard to imagine that kind of a complex, long-term, multi-person relationship ever happening entirely or even mostly in social media.

Social Media 100

Social Media Marketing Strategy Marketing & Strategy B2B Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 18, 2009

ITSMA research shows that B2B marketers are most successful when they use social media to drive prospects and customers to more “traditional” marketing channels such as the website and events. It is a new and invaluable channel, but it is not effective unless it is integrated with other marketing channels.

Social Media 100

Social Media Peer-to-peer Social Marketing B2B Marketing 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 20, 2009

Customers and prospects looking for content are going to see more of it coming from social media by default. The need to maximize web hits means that trade journalists are being pushed to create more shorter stories that appeal to the largest possible audience—not a fertile ground for in-depth analyses of complex B2B products and services.

Social Media 100

Social Media Social Marketing B2B Marketing Work Management 100

Chris Koch

JULY 22, 2011

Many of us in B2B can be proud of how we educate our customers and prospects on the business issues they face—from current regulatory changes to future “sea changes.” Sure, healthcare knows how to sell drugs, but in terms of preparing the customer for the experience of service delivery, fuggedaboudit.

Work Management 100

Work Management Marketing Management Social Media B2B Marketing 100