Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 17, 2010

All of our talk about marketers becoming publishers is incomplete. We can’t just become publishers, we also have to become advertisers. Let me explain. For centuries, publishers had an uneasy, co-dependent relationship with advertisers. A wall existed between publishers and advertisers. 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 indepe

Thought Leadership 154

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Advertising Agencies Paid Search Agency 154

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 12, 2010

Social media experts often chide marketers about control. 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. That’s why a change in the policies of perhaps the leading voice for social media, Forrester , has bigger implications than it may seem.

Social Media 154

Social Media Forrester Media Transparency 154

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 24, 2010

I’m wondering if it’s time to take sales enablement away from marketing. What do I mean by sales enablement? 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. Marketers helped salespeople put words to the insanely complex products and services they were trying to sell.

Peer-to-peer 153

Peer-to-peer Wiki Marketing Management Internet Marketing 153

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 22, 2010

We should care more about lead management automation in B2B marketing. Maybe we don’t care enough because we’re focusing on the wrong reasons for doing it. It isn’t because the software for automating this stuff has improved, or because it’s available through the cloud so you don’t have to deal with those people over in IT. No, there’s something bigger going on here.

Lead Management 153

Lead Management Marketing Management Automation Marketing Automation Services 153

Chris Koch

MAY 21, 2010

Have you ever noticed that your Facebook profile page looks like one of those horrible qualification forms that we make our customers fill out? If you go to Facebook and look at your profile, your immediate reaction is going to be that it’s asking for too much information. Social media is beginning to teach us that long qual forms are going the way of the dodo.

Privacy 152

Privacy B2B Marketing Lead Ranking B2B 152

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 12, 2010

Technology marketers have spent the last 25 years trying to get and keep the attention of the people with their hands on the technology tiller inside multi-billion dollar organizations, CIOs. And for nearly that long, pundits have been predicting that the CIO role would become extinct, and that the strategic decisions about technology would be subsumed into the business.

Marketing Management 148

Marketing Management B2B Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency Thought Leadership 148

Chris Koch

MARCH 19, 2010

Image by HubSpot via Flickr. I want to do something ambitious and I’m hoping you’ll help. I’d like to create a guide for how to use social media in B2B that does not involve talking about the specific tools—as least not in the top line. I think it’s important to try to do this if we’re going to get social media integrated with the rest of marketing.

Social Media 147

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer Media 147

Chris Koch

AUGUST 13, 2010

At first glance, Steven Slater seems like a total crackpot—cursing out a passenger on the intercom and snagging a few beers on the way to a fun-house exit on the inflatable emergency slide (admit it, haven’t you always wanted to slide down that thing yourself?). But we’re in the era of social media now, so there are breadcrumbs in the forest that lead us to a fuller explanation of who Slater is and why he did what he did.

Social Media 143

Social Media Media SME B2B 143

Chris Koch

APRIL 9, 2010

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about how to get others to blog. But it’s not enough just to support bloggers. For them to be successful, we need to help them establish their voices in a blog. The way that we establish trust and relationships with buyers is through authority. We want readers of our SMEs’ blogs to see them as experts. But you can’t establish that authority by putting a link to their LinkedIn profile on the blog.

SME 138

SME Aggregators Blogger Social Media 138

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Image via Wikipedia. I’ve been working with my colleagues at ITSMA on another survey on social media for B2B marketers that I hope you’ll take by going here. As we put together the questions, we struggled with the issue of social media strategy. I resisted treating it as a standalone in the survey. I’m hoping that all the articles, books, and blogs I’m seeing that look at B2B social media strategy in isolation are a function of our excitement over this new channel (and don’t get me wrong; it is

Social Media 132

Social Media Marketing Strategy Marketing & Strategy B2B Thought Leadership 132

Chris Koch

JANUARY 8, 2010

There is too much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth about social media objectives and strategy these days. We all assume that our organizations are unique and that we must devote great sums of time and money to figuring out what our particular motivation is for social media and how we will carry it out. We’re wired as humans to believe that we are each unique and different—indeed, this perception shoulders the bulk of our self-esteem.

Social Media 127

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership Media 127

Chris Koch

MARCH 12, 2010

Social media is raising the bar on customer intimacy. Though it has become a generic term, customer intimacy was first coined by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema who worked at CSC/Index back in the 90s when I was a thought leadership marketer there. Rooted in Michael Porter’s timeless work in business strategy, Treacy and Wiersema took it a step further with their three “value disciplines.”.

Social Media 126

Social Media Media Thought Leadership Work Management 126

Chris Koch

APRIL 2, 2010

I got a really interesting question last week through my Skribit box: How do you use emotional engagement when talking about dry technology? This may be the ultimate question in B2B, especially as we struggle to integrate social media into the overall marketing mix. 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.

B2B Thought Leadership 123

B2B Thought Leadership B2B Marketing Marketing Budget Thought Leadership 123

Chris Koch

MAY 7, 2010

Sure, sure, I know it’s Apple and Apple is to the ’10s what Sony was to the ’80s. But there must be more to the fact that the iPhone/iTouch are the fastest growing technology launch in history (and the iPad so far is on pace to outdo them both). Now of course you know that the iPhone and iPad are popular because of the way they look. The smooth contours and the shimmering black glass bezels make the devices look more like something out of a Swarovski store than a Best Buy.

Mobile Marketing 123

Mobile Marketing Wikipedia Communities B2B Marketing 123

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 12, 2010

Here’s why this sucks. I have to shut down the original carcass of my blog at wordpress.com because it has been dead for more than a year now and it’s starting to stink. I noticed the other day that it comes up right next to my new website in Google search when you’re looking for my blog. Trouble with that is, I stopped posting on that blog more than a year ago, so it makes it look like I have given up on blogging.

RSS 121

RSS Thought Leadership Opinions Communities 121

Chris Koch

JANUARY 22, 2010

Image by LollyKnit via Flickr. I wish I could say that social media leads to sales. I really do. But I can’t. And I haven’t encountered anyone else who can either, have you? So when we think about social media ROI, we need to make a leap of faith. We need to believe that more engagement between our companies and the people we want to reach is a good thing that ultimately leads to sales—but down a long, narrow, winding path with a few jumps between cliffs thrown in there.

Social Media 119

Social Media ROI Lead Ranking RSS 119

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 26, 2010

The era of the sales process beginning with a lead is over. The number of B2B buyers who are ready to buy as soon as they engage with our marketing is small—and social media will make it even smaller. We have to come to terms with the fact that there is a stage of the buying process that comes before the buyers we are pursuing are ready to become leads.

Social Media 116

Social Media Lead Generation B2B Thought Leadership Generation 116

Chris Koch

AUGUST 20, 2010

I'm going on vacation for two weeks so my blog will be going dark for a little while. I thought this would be a good time to ask you a big favor: Will you answer a few questions about my blog so I can make it better? I have an easy survey tool provided to me by the good folks at FUSE that specialize in automated online surveys like the one that you are (I hope) about to take (special thanks to Charles Martin at FUSE and Joe Saylor for giving me a chance to try it out).

Customer Surveys 116

Customer Surveys Template Automation B2B Marketing 116

Chris Koch

APRIL 16, 2010

We just completed our ITSMA survey on social media. I’ll be reporting some of the major findings here and at ITSMA.com over the coming weeks. But one finding sticks out. Marketing owns social media management. That’s right. It’s our job. In our survey, we asked, “In your company, is marketing the catalyst for social media being used by others in the company (product development, HR, etc.)?

Social Media 113

Social Media Work Management Marketing Management Social Marketing 113

Chris Koch

JULY 28, 2010

Image via Wikipedia. Companies who want to add their voices the blogosphere have a decision to make: Do we allow individual employees to be the dominant force in our efforts, or do we keep the focus on the company by creating group-authored blogs? In part, this is an issue of control. Some companies have decided to let a thousand flowers bloom—i.e., individual employees can blog as long as they adhere to the company’s social media policy.

Blogger 111

Blogger Wikipedia Work Management Social Media 111

Chris Koch

JUNE 18, 2010

Simple things seem to be the most powerful, don’t they? I think that’s one of the reasons that when people write about an archetypal business, they often use bicycles. Image via Wikipedia. Clear, simple product that everyone understands, right? Everyone knows what a bike shop does. They sell and fix bikes and they offer accessories. The bowl of quarters.

Wikipedia 105

Wikipedia Marketing Management Training Conference 105

Chris Koch

MAY 27, 2010

Great conferences have impact that lasts long after the day (or two or three) that they occur. MarketingProfs’ B2B Forum is one of those conferences. For example, the Twitter stream from this thing (#MPB2B) is still going strong weeks later. You should check it out; it’ll give you a great list of B2B marketers to follow. Another sign of a great event is the people it attracts.

Mobile Marketing 105

Mobile Marketing B2B Marketing Mobile Advertising B2B 105

Chris Koch

APRIL 30, 2010

For marketers considering creating mobile device apps, the bar has been set very high. I mean, c’mon, a free app that gives you voice directions to your destination? An app (also free) that lets you convert your spoken words into written emails? These are hard acts to follow. (I’m sure you have others; tell me about them in the comments—I’m an iPhone geek in my spare time.).

Mobile Marketing 100

Mobile Marketing Mobile Advertising Paid Search Agency Wiki 100

Chris Koch

MARCH 5, 2010

We got a question this week from an ITSMA client asking about developing a business case for creating mobile applications for their website content. I said that I haven’t seen any of those business cases yet. And I don’t think I ever will. We’re seeing mobile be part of an integrated approach to social media, not as a standalone. In fact, I’m working on two case studies this week of websites that have mobile applications, but the mobile applications are a small part of the whole.

Wiki 100

Wiki Urgency Marketing Mobile Marketing Content 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 29, 2010

Image via Wikipedia. Okay, so it’s difficult to actually pull money out of buyers for your marketing content (though there are rare exceptions: McKinsey has been doing it for years with the McKinsey Quarterly). Yet while generally we can’t put a price tag on our content, we do charge for it. The price is the forms we make people fill out to download white papers or sign up for events.

Lead Ranking 100

Lead Ranking Lead Scoring B2B Thought Leadership Mobile Advertising 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 29, 2010

Image via Wikipedia. Okay, so it’s difficult to actually pull money out of buyers for your marketing content (though there are rare exceptions: McKinsey has been doing it for years with the McKinsey Quarterly). Yet while generally we can’t put a price tag on our content, we do charge for it. The price is the forms we make people fill out to download white papers or sign up for events.

Lead Ranking 100

Lead Ranking Lead Scoring B2B Thought Leadership Mobile Advertising 100

Chris Koch

JANUARY 15, 2010

During one of the first few days I went to work at CIO magazine in 1995, I had what we called a “vendor visit”—one of many I would have in the coming years. The idea behind the visits was to avoid having us journos become isolated in our ivory tower. We needed to hear from marketers who were out there day-to-day listening to CIOs’ problems and aspirations.

Social Media 100

Social Media Work Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services 100

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 28, 2010

Here’s a list of things I wish we would stop doing and thinking as of December 31 st : Social media. Social media cause people to waste time at work. Companies have a long and pointless history of resisting new forms of communication. From Facebook to email to putting telephones on employees’ desks (remember, the telephone started as a “consumer” communication technology, too), companies think that every new wave is going to lead to gajillions in lost productivity.

Planning 200

Planning Work Management Paid Search Agency B2B Thought Leadership 200

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 16, 2010

Back in the eighties, when newspapers were only beginning to disappear, I worked for a local paper in a very competitive (journalistically, anyway) part of the world: the moneyed, New York City suburban area of Fairfield County, CT (Greenwich, Stamford, etc.). Among the five different newspapers that covered the same turf as I did was the New York Times, which had a section called “Connecticut Weekly” on Sundays.

Thought Leadership 157

Thought Leadership Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Media 157

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 1, 2010

Earlier this week I participated in one of MarketingProfs’ TechChats (just do a Twitter search on the #TechChat hashtag to find the dialogue). It’s a warm-up for the great dialogues we’ll be having at MarketingProfs’ SocialTech conference later this month in San Jose, where I’ll be speaking about social media and the B2B buying process. If you’re in B2B marketing, you gotta go to this thing.

Thought Leadership 178

Thought Leadership Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer 178

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 5, 2010

So much of what passes for thought leadership these days is little more than warmed over brochures. 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. Last year, I wrote a piece that talked about why thought leadership is dead and why we needed a new term to describe it.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Gartner Planning 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 3, 2010

When people ask about how to use social media tools like Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook, I suspect that they are really asking about how they should sound in those tools. After all, the tools themselves are dead simple. You need a second hand on your watch to track how long it takes to set up a Twitter account, for example. But developing a social media voice is a more complicated proposition.

Social Media 198

Social Media Media B2B Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer 198

Chris Koch

AUGUST 3, 2010

When people ask about how to use social media tools like Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook, I suspect that they are really asking about how they should sound in those tools. After all, the tools themselves are dead simple. You need a second hand on your watch to track how long it takes to set up a Twitter account, for example. But developing a social media voice is a more complicated proposition.

Social Media 181

Social Media Media B2B Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer 181

Chris Koch

JULY 9, 2010

Image by Getty Images via @daylife. I’ve been looking at the growing connection between gaming and thought leadership this week. I know, I know. It’s hard to utter thought leadership in the same breath as video games, avatars, and conversation balloons, but all of these pieces have converged. Turns out that video games have a role in making the complex (i.e., almost every B2B service ever created) explainable.

Thought Leadership 134

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Marketing Management Cross-Selling 134