Chris Koch

OCTOBER 7, 2011

This week I was asked to speak on a panel about social media to a group of B2B marketers in financial services. But they call it “financial services” for a reason: They have all of the same struggles as technology services companies—with the added complication of tons of regulatory requirements.

Social Media 100

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

Chris Koch

JULY 22, 2011

Any time anyone delivers a service to me now, I immediately start thinking about how the service is “being positioned,” and whether the “value proposition makes sense.” Sure, healthcare knows how to sell drugs, but in terms of preparing the customer for the experience of service delivery, fuggedaboudit. I’m a goner.

Work Management 100

Work Management Marketing Management Social Media B2B Marketing 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 10, 2014

Even if you do the heavy lifting, idea marketing kind of kind of stuff like the big services companies do, for example, where they interview people and do surveys, it isn’t journalism. That is marketing. It is branding. But it is not journalism.

Brand Identity 100

Brand Identity Branding Intent Positioning 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 17, 2010

Marketers, meanwhile, didn’t have a wall, so they filled their content with self-aggrandizing references to their own products and services that pissed off readers and sent them to other sources for advice. And all this deep thinking relates, by association, to the services that you offer. What’s the point?

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Advertising Agencies Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

I’m hearing a lot from clients and researchers about how vast swaths of salespeople need to be eliminated as companies transition from selling products to services and solutions. But I think we start slicing the genetic material a little too thinly when we separate the product salespeople from the services salespeople.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Consulting B2B Sales Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

I’m hearing a lot from clients and researchers about how vast swaths of salespeople need to be eliminated as companies transition from selling products to services and solutions. But I think we start slicing the genetic material a little too thinly when we separate the product salespeople from the services salespeople.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services B2B Sales Consulting Marketing Automation 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 30, 2009

Most of ITSMA’s clients are B2B marketers from big technology companies that sell big, complex products, services, and solutions. That means that the people buying those services—or at least playing a key role in the decision—tend to be high up on the corporate food chain—the C-suite or just below.

Social Media 100

Social Media Peer-to-peer Enterprise Management Media 100

Chris Koch

MAY 15, 2012

As buyers do more searching, they are stretching the buying process earlier and earlier, to the point where they may not have a specific product or service in mind when they search. Most salespeople are still focused on selling specific products and services. What does online search have to do with selling?

FAQ 100

FAQ Custom Publishing B2B Sales Work Management 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 18, 2010

He sees it entirely as a service business. And he aims to give away (as in free) as many services to his customers as possible. They sell and fix bikes and they offer accessories. The bowl of quarters. But Chris Zane thinks of this simple business model differently.

Wikipedia 100

Wikipedia Marketing Management Training Conference 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 2, 2011

But then I see something like HP Technology Services (HPTS)’ “Where’s the Humanity in Your Technology” campaign, or Hitachi Data Services ( HDS )’ Social Media Buzz campaign. If all you do is run contests and campaigns on Facebook, how can you expect to hold onto prospects over the long term?

Social Media 100

Social Media Campaigns B2B Thought Leadership Media 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 2, 2011

But then I see something like HP Technology Services (HPTS)’ “Where’s the Humanity in Your Technology” campaign, or Hitachi Data Services ( HDS )’ Social Media Buzz campaign. If all you do is run contests and campaigns on Facebook, how can you expect to hold onto prospects over the long term?

Social Media 100

Social Media Campaigns B2B Thought Leadership Media 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 12, 2010

Tags: Customer Relationships Social Media Thought Leadership Apple Business Customer Intimacy Internet Marketing marketing Marketing and Advertising Michael Porter Operational Excellence Product Leadership Services social media management social media strategy Value Disciplines.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Thought Leadership Work Management 100

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 26, 2010

This is the stage that occurs long before any discussion of products, services, or RFPs—indeed, it occurs before customers have even begun to think about a purchase. As social media expands our opportunity to reach people who have never heard of us or our services, we need to be prepared to engage them during the epiphany stage.

Social Media 100

Social Media Lead Generation B2B Thought Leadership Generation 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 29, 2009

Even if we believe deeply in the power of social media, we all have that gnawing feeling deep in our guts that says that there’s little reason for a busy, intelligent person to want to receive frequent updates about our brands when those brands produce complex services and products with two-year sales cycles. The research confirms it.

Enterprise Management 100

Enterprise Management B2B Marketing B2B Thought Leadership Marketing Management 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 10, 2009

This depends on whether the products and services themselves are knowledge intensive. In industries where the product or service is very information intensive, such as research, management consulting, technology, aerospace, etc., Especially in B2B, products and services are becoming more complex and sales cycles are getting longer.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer Work Management 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 29, 2010

Tags: Customer Relationships Lead Management Advertising B2B marketing Business Business model Content Marketing Lady GaGa Lead Generation Lead Nurturing Lead Scoring marketing Money New York Times social media strategy Social network service Thought Leadership.

Lead Ranking 100

Lead Ranking Lead Scoring B2B Thought Leadership Mobile Advertising 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 29, 2010

Tags: Customer Relationships Lead Management Advertising B2B marketing Business Business model Content Marketing Lady GaGa Lead Generation Lead Nurturing Lead Scoring marketing Money New York Times social media strategy Social network service Thought Leadership.

Lead Ranking 100

Lead Ranking Lead Scoring B2B Thought Leadership Mobile Advertising 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 23, 2009

For example, what if your brand or offering uses a generic term like “Service Oriented Architecture”? Since many of the monitoring tools are new, most are available as Software as a Service (SaaS) over the internet, which makes it easy for marketers to try them out. But things can quickly get complicated from there.

Social Media 100

Social Media Tools Media RSS 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 13, 2010

The trajectory of Slater’s postings look a lot like the things that customers say about our complex B2B products and services, which have a much longer arc of relationship than B2C. They may have come on board at a time when your products and services offered more than they do now or worked differently.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media SME B2B 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 15, 2010

Tags: ITSMA Research Marketing Strategy Add new tag Advertising B2B marketing Customer relationship management ITSMA Marketing and Advertising Marketing Automation Marketing Processes Sales social media strategy Software as a service Thought Leadership.

Social Media 100

Social Media Work Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services 100

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 12, 2009

Wordpress has a list of hosting services on its site to help you get your site started. You really should consider it if you’re thinking about doing a blog or would like more traffic from your existing blog. It’s an incredibly powerful tool.

Domain 100

Domain RSS Traffic Design 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

Whoever heads up customer experience should oversee an effort to ask every frontline employee what’s impeding their ability to deliver excellent service. Companies should also tap into customer-facing employees, who are a rich source of insights. Form temporary problem-solving teams.

De-duplication 100

De-duplication Paid Search Agency Companies Wikipedia 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 22, 2011

I wrote a case study a few years ago about how IT services firm CSC has an innovation process that is facilitated by marketing. In a blog post this week entitled What CEOs Want from Their CMOs, Forrester’s CEO, George Colony, discusses the mandate for the CMO to keep an eye out for what’s ahead. And will CEOs let them? What do you think?

Enterprise Management 100

Enterprise Management Work Management Marketing Management Social Media 100

Chris Koch

MAY 21, 2010

Both Facebook and we have traditionally believed that the content services that we provide—in our case studies, white papers, webinars, etc.—come It’s a great service, but it only reinforces the perception of Facebook as Big Brother. come at a price. It costs us money to produce this stuff, and therefore our consumers must pay a price.

Privacy 100

Privacy B2B Marketing Lead Ranking B2B 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 30, 2010

The classic B2B mobile applications have been internally focused, giving maintenance people access to service information while they are out in the field. Xerox Global Services (XGS) built a mobile application as part of its internal sales tool called Competipedia. There has to be a purpose behind adding mobile.

Mobile Marketing 100

Mobile Marketing Mobile Advertising Paid Search Agency Wiki 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 24, 2010

Marketers helped salespeople put words to the insanely complex products and services they were trying to sell. I heard a great definition from my former ITSMA colleague Jeff Sands the other day: Sales enablement is helping salespeople be more credible with customers. We all know how sales enablement got started in B2B.

Peer-to-peer 100

Peer-to-peer Wiki Marketing Management Internet Marketing 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 8, 2011

I was thrilled to run a social media workshop this week with a large B2B technology and services provider (and ITSMA member). The great thing about the experience was that this company is already doing social media. In other words, I didn’t have to spend any time defending the honor of social media and explaining why they should be doing it.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Paid Search Agency PR 100

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. It forced me to think about all the components necessary to build and sustain a thought leadership strategy. Here are my thoughts on the big pieces.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Network Marketing Paper 100

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. It forced me to think about all the components necessary to build and sustain a thought leadership strategy. Here are my thoughts on the big pieces.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Network Marketing B2B Sales 100

Chris Koch

JULY 28, 2010

This is especially true for services companies, who don’t have concrete products that can do the branding for them.). An interesting article this week, Brand Building, Beyond Marketing, essentially argues that the issue of brand has gotten beyond the control of marketing and is increasingly embodied in the actions of individual employees.

Blogger 100

Blogger Wikipedia Work Management Social Media 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 2, 2010

Let’s face it, even if it was possible to curl up in front of the fire with a glass of wine and our B2B products and services, no one would do it. This may be the ultimate question in B2B, especially as we struggle to integrate social media into the overall marketing mix. Most of the things we sell are about as emotive as army ants.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership B2B Marketing Marketing Budget Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 11, 2009

But video case studies and interactive product demos—even for B2B services— are going to become more popular on mobile devices. For example, a Forbes survey found that C-suite executives are more likely to make the time for a video than other executives. Sure, there are technical issues. Video search isn’t great yet, though it’s improving.

Mobile Marketing 100

Mobile Marketing B2B Marketing B2B Storytelling 100

Chris Koch

APRIL 16, 2010

Marketing as a percentage of revenue for technology services companies is at an all-time low—less than 1%. The biggest implication is that we cannot afford for social media to become a silo or an add-on to our existing marketing organizations.

Social Media 100

Social Media Work Management Marketing Management Social Marketing 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 4, 2011

Publishers are left with a trickle of revenue and B2B companies discover just how uninterested a generic online audience is in their products and services. It’s a no win for everybody except the ad agencies. From the ashes of trade journalism, an opportunity for marketers.

B2B Thought Leadership 100

B2B Thought Leadership Advertising Agencies B2B Marketing Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 7, 2012

Our group’s mandate is to research the business issues that SAP’s customers and prospects care about and write exclusively about those issues—not our products and services. As a practitioner of idea marketing at SAP, that’s music to my ears. The Forbes platform is Exhibit A for marketers who think what we do is a waste of time and money.

Disintermediation 100

Disintermediation B2B Marketing Marketing Management Paid Search Agency 100

Chris Koch

JUNE 11, 2010

Maybe if you’re selling Apple iPads, but if you’re selling complex B2B services and solutions? But can we ever say that marketers will become the leading contributors of leads that wind up as closed business? Seems doubtful. Meanwhile, an overemphasis on leads causes salespeople to devalue the things that marketers really do best.

Lead Generation 100

Lead Generation Lead Scoring Lead Ranking Sales Qualified Leads 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