Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 11, 2011

Taglines are the last bastions of a classic, one-way marketing messaging strategy, preserving marketing’s perceived right to tell customers what to think. In truth, customers have never listened, except in a few cases of companies with the budget muscle to pound the tagline into customers’ heads over and over again though mass marketing and TV. In B2B marketing, we’ve never been given the right to tell customers what to think, much less the budgets to pound a tagline into their minds.

Social Marketing 157

Social Marketing Tactics B2B Thought Leadership Enterprise Management 157

Chris Koch

MARCH 25, 2011

At the first of ITSMA’s series of road shows this week in Silicon Valley this week (there’s still time to sign up for New York and Boston next week!) I confirmed something I’ve been hearing in my research on idea marketing over the past month: idea marketing requires a deep commitment not just from marketing but from the entire organization. Eric Wittlake makes this point in a blog post this week and I heartily agree.

Social Media 157

Social Media Organization Peer-to-peer SME 157

Chris Koch

MAY 6, 2011

Image via Wikipedia. Measuring influence is the new obsession in the social media world—adding another layer of anxiety to the dark cloud of existential dread that is marketing ROI. Social media present us as individuals seeking status within a community, which is something that humans have been working at since our days as monkeys. Indeed, science tells us that monkeys would rather look at pictures of high-ranking members of their troop than eat.

Social Media 155

Social Media Social Marketing Work Management Media 155

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 14, 2011

In three plus years of tweeting, I’ve picked up what I perceive to be the general etiquette for engaging on Twitter. I’ve also done research asking B2B marketers how they engage and how they educate their employees and SMEs to engage. I’ve rolled all that up into an approach that I doubt constantly. I don’t seem to be alone. Lots of people seem to be having Twitter identity crises these days.

Social Media 154

Social Media Media Twitter Social Networks 154

Chris Koch

MAY 20, 2011

Many marketers involved in social media management tell me that they struggle to get their subject matter experts engaged in social media. But focusing solely on engagement is the wrong goal. What we should be talking about instead is getting those experts involved in creating ideas. In an interview this week with Stephanie Tilton (thanks, Stephanie!

Social Media 152

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Media Thought Leadership 152

Chris Koch

JUNE 15, 2011

Image via Wikipedia. Social media (along with skimpy marketing budgets) are causing a transformation in marketing to a degree that we haven’t seen for a lifetime. But in our rush to embrace the new, we haven’t taken adequate time to honor the painful transition we are experiencing. Think of me as your grief counselor for good ol’ message-based marketing.

Social Media 151

Social Media B2B Thought Leadership Media Wikipedia 151

Chris Koch

JULY 22, 2011

Here’s the kind of pressure that social media puts on us: After not posting anything to my blog in nearly six weeks, I feel compelled to offer an explanation. Isn’t that sad? Hey, but that’s how it is. Social media are like a school of sharks; keep moving forward or sink lifelessly to the bottom. Well, I have an explanation, or an excuse, and a damned good one at that.

Work Management 150

Work Management Marketing Management Social Media B2B Marketing 150

Chris Koch

JANUARY 21, 2011

At ITSMA , we’ve been busy preparing for our annual State of the Marketing Profession briefing next Tuesday. It’s where we introduce some of the top findings from our annual budget survey of marketers. But we don’t like to just parrot the numbers from the survey. So we spend weeks leading up to the briefing arguing about what the numbers actually mean and what marketers should do.

Social Media 147

Social Media Budget Programs Paper Stats 147

Chris Koch

JANUARY 28, 2011

This is the year that the personal brand begins to do battle with the corporate brand. I think we need to let the personal brand win—especially in B2B. Featuring big pictures and bios of your subject matter experts on your website is a good start, but it is the equivalent of paid search. It’s relevant but still a step removed from the truly personal connection.

Personalization 146

Personalization Forrester Brand Identity Branding 146

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 23, 2011

Majority opinion seems to be that Twitter isn’t really a social platform it’s a broadcast medium. A study by Yahoo Research found that 50% of tweets are generated by an “elite” group of 20k users and that those users tend to follow one another rather than branching out—what many refer to as the social media echo chamber. For these reasons, pundits say that Twitter isn’t much use for reaching B2B customers.

Twitter 141

Twitter Broadcasting Social Media B2B Marketing 141

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 9, 2011

At any moment in time, C-level executives are looking for answers to two questions: What should I be doing right now? What should I be preparing to do in the future? We need to create a mix of these two types of thought leadership content to maintain strong relationships with their target audiences. Here’s why: Marketers who do this are more successful.

Thought Leadership 141

Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer Loyalty Case Study 141

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. This was all about the how.

Social Media 141

Social Media Media PR Paid Search Agency 141

Chris Koch

FEBRUARY 11, 2011

There’s lots of talk out there these days about the need for a technology guru within the B2B marketing department. Paul Dunay makes the case for one in this post, and Scott Brinker has been beating the drum for this for some time. Maybe I’m splitting hairs here, but I wonder about the long-term need for a marketing technologist. In the short term, I think marketing has a lot of catching up to do in terms of technology.

Analytics 141

Analytics Paid Search Agency Marketing Management Loyalty 141

Chris Koch

AUGUST 23, 2011

Seems everyone has an opinion about Google’s G+. And as usual in a situation where little data exists (yet) to support fact-based opinions, most of them are extreme. Some say G+ is dead in the water because it hasn’t generated the mad rush that Facebook did and that growth and use is already starting to slow. Others say that G+ will rule because of its integration with Google’s other tools like Android, Gmail, Docs, and its media properties like YouTube and Google Music —in other words, the colo

Social Media 140

Social Media Media Social Networks B2B Thought Leadership 140

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 2, 2011

If you had asked me a few years ago whether the traditional marketing campaign had any place in social media I would have scoffed. Just more evidence of marketing’s old-fashioned, ADHD-driven, love-’em-and-leave-’em approach. I would have had only slightly less disdain for the audience for these campaigns. Fly-by-night opportunists hoping to win your Facebook sweepstakes.

Social Media 134

Social Media Campaigns B2B Thought Leadership Media 134

Chris Koch

AUGUST 16, 2011

Image by roboppy via Flickr. The other day, I kept getting calls on my cell phone from the same number. Never left a voice mail, (which my gut was telling me should have been a signal), but the number was local. Could it really be that someone I knew was trying to get hold of me? So, like a fool, I finally called back (the iPhone makes it so easy to do!).

B2B 113

B2B Privacy Click Rate Internet Marketing 113

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 11, 2011

Taglines are the last bastions of a classic, one-way marketing messaging strategy, preserving marketing’s perceived right to tell customers what to think. In truth, customers have never listened, except in a few cases of companies with the budget muscle to pound the tagline into customers’ heads over and over again though mass marketing and TV. In B2B marketing, we’ve never been given the right to tell customers what to think, much less the budgets to pound a tagline into their minds.

Social Marketing 107

Social Marketing Tactics B2B Thought Leadership Enterprise Management 107

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 2, 2011

If you had asked me a few years ago whether the traditional marketing campaign had any place in social media I would have scoffed. Just more evidence of marketing’s old-fashioned, ADHD-driven, love-’em-and-leave-’em approach. I would have had only slightly less disdain for the audience for these campaigns. Fly-by-night opportunists hoping to win your Facebook sweepstakes.

Social Media 105

Social Media Campaigns B2B Thought Leadership Media 105

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 29, 2011

Some time back, I blogged about the attributes of a thought leader. Lately, I’ve been talking to B2B marketers about the content delivered by these thought leaders and asking, What defines good thought leadership content? Here’s what I have so far. Surely, you have a suggestion that will get us to ten attributes? Visionary. It’s best to address a problem before customers realize that it’s a problem.

Thought Leadership 102

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Best Practices Case Study 102

Chris Koch

OCTOBER 14, 2011

In three plus years of tweeting, I’ve picked up what I perceive to be the general etiquette for engaging on Twitter. I’ve also done research asking B2B marketers how they engage and how they educate their employees and SMEs to engage. I’ve rolled all that up into an approach that I doubt constantly. I don’t seem to be alone. Lots of people seem to be having Twitter identity crises these days.

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Twitter Social Networks 100

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. It was great getting the perspective of marketers outside of technology. 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

SEPTEMBER 23, 2011

Majority opinion seems to be that Twitter isn’t really a social platform it’s a broadcast medium. A study by Yahoo Research found that 50% of tweets are generated by an “elite” group of 20k users and that those users tend to follow one another rather than branching out—what many refer to as the social media echo chamber. For these reasons, pundits say that Twitter isn’t much use for reaching B2B customers.

Twitter 100

Twitter Broadcasting Social Media Advertising Mediums 100

Chris Koch

SEPTEMBER 9, 2011

At any moment in time, C-level executives are looking for answers to two questions: What should I be doing right now? What should I be preparing to do in the future? We need to create a mix of these two types of thought leadership content to maintain strong relationships with their target audiences. Here’s why: Marketers who do this are more successful.

Thought Leadership 100

Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer Loyalty Case Study 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 23, 2011

Seems everyone has an opinion about Google’s G+. And as usual in a situation where little data exists (yet) to support fact-based opinions, most of them are extreme. Some say G+ is dead in the water because it hasn’t generated the mad rush that Facebook did and that growth and use is already starting to slow. Others say that G+ will rule because of its integration with Google’s other tools like Android, Gmail, Docs, and its media properties like YouTube and Google Music —in other words, the colo

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Social Networks B2B Thought Leadership 100

Chris Koch

AUGUST 16, 2011

Image by roboppy via Flickr. The other day, I kept getting calls on my cell phone from the same number. Never left a voice mail, (which my gut was telling me should have been a signal), but the number was local. Could it really be that someone I knew was trying to get hold of me? So, like a fool, I finally called back (the iPhone makes it so easy to do!).

B2B 100

B2B Privacy Click Rate Internet Marketing 100

Chris Koch

MAY 13, 2011

I take a perverse pleasure in reading my Twitter DMs, 99% of which are of the automated variety, looking for the heartfelt sentiment that goes out to me and thousands of other close personal friends every day from people I’ve started following. I try to imagine the impulses that motivate the writers behind these parsimonious hanging chads of fake individualized attention.

Twitter 142

Twitter Validation CAN-SPAM Facebook 142

Chris Koch

JULY 29, 2011

McKinsey recently learned a difficult lesson about what happens when the world takes your thought leadership marketing seriously—and when you lack the ability to respond in the moment through social media. The trouble started when the McKinsey Quarterly published an article in early June entitled How US health care reform will affect employee benefits, based on a survey the firm did about what will happen to employer-sponsored health care insurance coverage when the President’s health care law

Social Media 196

Social Media Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency Companies 196

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 16, 2011

In 1975, New York City was a real s—thole (I should know, I was a teenager growing up in the area at the time—yes, I’m that old). Dangerous, dirty, rundown, corrupt, without a trace of its current chicness and style, and, most significantly, broke. Image via Wikipedia. Now, this isn’t a political blog so I’m not going to take sides, but the rap on the city down in Washington, D.C. at the time was that the pain was all self-inflicted (a raging recession notwithstanding).

Wikipedia 128

Wikipedia Opinions CAN-SPAM Search Marketing 128

Chris Koch

DECEMBER 16, 2011

In 1975, New York City was a real s—thole (I should know, I was a teenager growing up in the area at the time—yes, I’m that old). Dangerous, dirty, rundown, corrupt, without a trace of its current chicness and style, and, most significantly, broke. Image via Wikipedia. Now, this isn’t a political blog so I’m not going to take sides, but the rap on the city down in Washington, D.C. at the time was that the pain was all self-inflicted (a raging recession notwithstanding).

Wikipedia 108

Wikipedia Opinions CAN-SPAM Search Marketing 108