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Archive for the ‘B2B Marketing’ Category« Previous EntriesWhat effect does emotion have on choosing a b2b supplier of goods and services?Wednesday, March 21st, 2012  In this week’s Business Surgery, Paul Hague looks at how we make decisions – and particularly how much of an influence a strong brand plays in the process. At the heart of good marketing is persuasion. We shouldn’t be shy about the fact that we have a product or service that we want people to buy. However, marketing focuses on the customer and their needs whereas selling focuses on the seller and what they want to get rid of. In other words, marketing forces us to understand the world through the customers’ eyes. One of the most difficult things when trying to see the world through our customers’ eyes is “how rational are our customers when they make their decisions?” Malcolm Gladwell in his book Blink argues that we subconsciously make our minds up very quickly indeed – in fact in a blink. We might then spend a long time rationalising this decision and believing that it has been arrived at by conscious rather than subconscious thought. The relevance of this to us in business-to-business marketing is that we are inclined to believe that business-to-business customers leave their emotions at home when they come to work and that all their decisions are rational. We know that this is not the case. Research consistently confirms that those companies that are best known to us (in other words they have a strong brand) are most likely to get the business. This is because familiarity is important in the blink test – we feel more comfortable with a supplier that we know even if we have never done business with them before. The answer is therefore to build a brand, not only in terms of awareness but also to engage with the customer and build trust. For those of you who haven’t yet read Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink, we strongly recommend it. Or watch his 30-minute discussion on the subject on YouTube Questions arising from Gladwell’s work are:
For more information on building a strong brand, click here. B2B Intl Confirmed At IDM 2012 Business Marketing ConferenceMonday, January 23rd, 2012  The 9th IDM Business Marketing Conference: New world, new values, new customer rules The role of marketing in driving the business, and the need to have nailed down a robust and well thought out business strategy to underpin your marketing, has never been greater. To achieve results and demonstrate their impact on the bottom line, business marketers need to embrace new and innovative strategies and tactics to engage with their customers (and stakeholders) and integrate them into their existing approaches. Technological developments and economic challenges have fundamentally changed the way business marketers do business and the shift in power to the consumer has had a profound impact on moving from a push to listen/nurture/respond approach. Nick Hague, Managing Director of B2B International has been confirmed as a speaker to talk about “Taking account of global cultural differences and understanding the complexities of international expansion”. On the day, Nick will be joined with other speakers including: • Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Mubaloo • Chief Marketing Officer, Psion • Marketing Director, Reed Business Information • Head of B2B Marketing, KLM • UK and Ireland Brand Manager, IBM • Head of SME Business Marketing, 02UK To understand what the new b2b world looks like in 2012, the new values that hold true and the new customer rules in b2b marketing come along on the 24th May 2012 at the Commonwealth Club in London. For more information visit: http://www.theidm.com/marketing-events/b2b-conference/ The Dos and Don’ts of B2B MarketingThursday, January 20th, 2011  Always on the lookout for interesting articles about b2b marketing, we recently came across CeeKue.com, which contains some interesting blog posts. And a great piece to start off the year is, of course, one that considers how B2B marketing will develop and change over the course of 2011, and how these changes should impact the way we work. So, without further ado, here are the 10 Dos and Don’ts for 2011 B2B Marketing: 1. Do make yourself visible on Social Media and don’t spend all your money on advertising. 2. Do talk about benefits for your customers and don’t talk about your business or your products. 3. Do let your customers decide how to communicate with you and don’t think you are able to educate your customers. 4. Do start building lists and don’t rely on your existing CRM database. 5. Do measure your existence on Social Media and don’t measure website visitors, pageviews and time spend on your website. 6. Do produce as much content as possible and don’t think your work is done once your website is finished. 7. Do make your content sharable and don’t be afraid if people use your content. 8. Do use standard solutions and platforms and don’t stick to your propriate solutions that none of your customers are using. 9. Do listen to your customer and don’t be the only one that is talking. 10. Do forget (most of) what you have done in the past and don’t be afraid to change. And don’t be afraid if these changes do cost you a lot of money. It is mainly your mindset and the way you think about your customers, market, products and your business that needs to change. Marketing & Selling to Chinese BusinessesThursday, December 2nd, 2010 
China Business Review
This article can be found on the China Business Review website at the following link. Alternatively, the B2B International white paper Marketing and Selling to Chinese Businesses can be accessed by clicking here. Business Optimism Grows for B2B MarketersTuesday, August 10th, 2010  Figures from the B2B Barometer1 show that the economic situation for B2B marketers looks optimistic for the future: Business optimism gradually returning amongst B2B marketers On the client side:
Agencies are more optimistic, with four fifths (79%) anticipating that they will grow over the next 12 months. For many agencies this represents a significant turnaround in their fortunes; 45% report that revenues have declined in the last 12 months. For others it represents a continuation of an existing trend; 34% report growth in the last 12 months. Newer media continue to increase share of wallet Client-side marketers continue to allocate a significant proportion of their budgets to three channels; trade shows (16%), direct mail (13%) and email marketing (16%). ‘Newer’ media channels continue their rise and now account for 41% of total marketing spend (up from 39% last wave). Increased focus on measuring ROMI There is a noticeable trend towards measuring the Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) Social media relevant …but B2B marketers lack understanding Two trends have received extensive coverage in the B2B press in recent months:
The B2B Barometer sought to explore each area in some depth and has brought fact to an
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