B2B Marketing

 

B2B sales can be very complicated and protracted affairs and involve multiple points of touch at different stages. To add to the complexity, they can be with different organisational stakeholders at different points in the sales cycle.

As a marketer your job does not stop at the brand awareness  building stage but you should enter into a dialogue with your future customers well into close stages

A specific personal experience I had lives vividly in my mind and always brings a smile to my face, whenever I recall it. When I was posted overseas to Kazakhstan where I was responsible for sales and marketing of confectionery for a leading Western brand, I was invited to the home of our warehouse director for a feast called ‘datsarkhan'. The host brought out a sheep's head that had been boiled

Very few technology companies are restricting themselves to just a single geography and the term globalisation is a common term understood by most. But whilst there are increased opportunities associated with expanding your geographic footprint, there are also increased complexities with marketing and communication activities across borders.
The challenge for any marketing professional who has a

Online marketing is increasingly becoming the de facto mechanism by which B2B organisations enter into dialogue and relationships with prospects and buyers. And with the increasing demand for marketers to demonstrate value to their board for every dollar/pound/euro invested and the constant need to demonstrate quality and a continuous feed at the sales pipeline level, it is now time that

Still a common misconception amongst many in organisations is that marketing is there to sell a company's products and services. Actually this is a rather limited view of true marketing. In the days when demand for goods and services outsrippped supply and consumers had little choice, things were different. However in the modern day, we now see the impact of globalisation, proliferation of

In a world of slower market growth, globalisation and increasing commoditization, all companies struggle with how they set themselves apart from the typical convergent ‘me-too' offerings so prevalent in industries. As such they look to innovation to help them but tend to take a myopic view of innovation across dimensions of R&D and New Product development.

Mohanbir Sawhney, director of

A high tech firm was looking to prioritize their plans for the coming year. The full senior management team was in attendance. In reviewing their efforts the head of marketing noted that they were averaging 12,000 hits per month on the company web site.

Unfamiliar with the term, the CFO asked what ‘hits' were and before the marketing executive could answer the sales executive said. "It's an

As I have been marketing B2B propositions for several technology firms, some things have become very evident and I am sure many of the points will resonate with my sales and marketing peers:

• Complex sales with different buying influences and politics imply that as a seller, you are going to have multiple points of touch before you close the sale. I like the term ‘moments of truth' to explain that

I was recently directed to an article suggesting that Trader Joes, MTV and iPod were all born during times of recession and if handled correctly a downturn can be a good thing for a company. The article went on to suggest that whilst everyone else may be turning their backs on advertising, companies should be advertising more.

I am not sure it is totally correct to suggest that if handled

In B2B tech industries, unless you are a leading brand and are almost guaranteed media pick up from your press release distribution activities you are going to be hard pressed to make serious headway into engaging with media.

One way is to use your customers as advocates for the company and pitch their success stories to the journalist community. That's a very good tactic and an approach that I