I've been feeling very good about B2B Marketing recently. Not the magazine, or the website (though they are both fantastic) but the genre. Until today that is. Rushing down the stairs to the tube at Waterloo station I was struck by a monstrosity of a poster ad for Brother printers. It felt like a throw back to the 1990s. Shame on you Brother, and your agency.

I know it's just an poster campaign and I should be recognising what is a great bit of media buying, but I'm willing to bet that I and perhaps a few other of you sensitive marketers are the only people that remember it and for that reason it's depressing. Not only is it a brand (or possibly a product range) ad focusing on a feature that is so generic (speed), but the execution is frankly insulting. A man hurdling a desk. A man hurdling a desk, of all things.

I thought we'd progressed beyond that. I thought we all recognised that we may select a product on it's features but we select a brand on much more subtle things. Things we don't necessarily consciously recognise but that are more powerful and more influencial than any product feature. Especially in such a mature market like office printers!

We have to do better, in fact most of are. The sophistication of planning observable across all B2B sectors is way above this, but just a few of you (and you know who you are) are letting the side down.

I recently sent my boyfriend to Tesco to buy some sugar. Twenty minutes later, the phone rang. A bemused voice, verging on panic, said, “There’s 257 different types of sugar in front of me. Which one shall I buy, which one, which one?” Two hours later, he returned home with four different bags of sugar, all of varying shades, three of which are destined to go mouldy in my cupboard.

I feel pretty much the same about the amount of words that we are bombarded with. Every single day, columns and columns of news, features, information, advice, analysis, commentary, profiles and reviews are printed on reams and reams of paper. How do I know which ones to read, which ones to discard, and which ones to cut out and stick on my wall?

And that was before the Internet. Now, it’s a hopeless cause. Cyberspace is jam packed with words, and increasingly: videos, virals, podcasts, webinars, wikis and games - official, as well as unofficial - with bloggers (including myself) writing their own opinion on anything and everything to anyone that will listen.

So, how do you know where to look and who to trust – and where to express your own opinions? As the Internet matures and the information on it becomes increasingly unmanageable, it looks like niche communities will become its mainstay. In the world of B2B, where ‘niche’ is a key word, such communities are already springing up led by the likes of companies such as the Financial Times and Quark.

Hopefully, this will be the future of online. Once we’ve found our own niche, online worlds (and I’m sure each one of us will have a few for each area of our lives), we’ll find lots of the information we need in one place. So, if like me, you’re having trouble seeing the wood for the trees, don’t despair, your days of trawling the Internet for hours in a blind panic, or building a tower of newspapers to sift through at the weekend, may be numbered. Your own special community website will help to filter the information and give it to you straight – perhaps with a few opinions thrown in for good measure. I’m thinking of launching one called ‘Sugar for Starters’. It’s bound to take off.

I generally respond well to telemarketing but I cannot stand getting cold calls from businesses, who’s opening line is “Can I speak to the person who deals with [office stationary, or, recruitment, or, couriers etc]”. I’ve just had another one this morning, which has led me to write this Blog.

Lets get this straight, I pick up the phone and it turns out the sales person calling does not even know who they have called, then presume to ask me to put them in touch with the correct person, in my company, so they can sell to them. I am not your personal receptionist! Am I just being a little negative towards enterprising firms? I think not and I am sure I am not alone.

I know what is going on here. These sales people are just going through the likes of the Yellow Pages or a 40 years old database where they know that the contacts must have left the company, if they are alive today at all!

Anybody out there doing this beware... to reiterate, I do respond very well to professional well-targeted telesales. Telesales calls, where knowing my name is a prerequisite, but knowing what my role in the company and my profession wins me over each time. I know you have targeted me for a reason.

Telesales IS a very powerful media if executed professionally. However, the phone is mine, the time is mine, and you are inviting yourself into my space. Hence, calling me up, without knowing who I am and then asking me to do your job for you i.e. telling you whom you should be targeting, just rubs me up the wrong way. Each time I get a call like that I LIE, even if the service is one I am interested in! As I do not do business with firms who engage with sloppy and underhand B2B marketing techniques.

What is the solution?

a)     Stop being cheapskates and buy in some quality data to telesale … data which is preferably no more than 18 months old, with names, job titles and industry codes – that is the minimum requirement.

b)     Then at least pitch me with your idea [by name], and if I am the wrong person, I am more likely to pass you to the correct person, as you have already engaged with me as a human being!

In short, cutting corners in marketing just damages your brand. Data and targeting is key to success. Spend more money and time upfront and you will get a better response and waste less of your [and my] time calling up randoms. You’ll also be able to open with a personal statement, rather than asking the god-awful question “Can I speak to the person who deals with…”

If I had a pound for every time I’d encountered any of the following words or phrases in a press release, I’d be well on my way buying my own place in London by now. ‘Dynamic’, ‘exciting’, ‘groundbreaking’, ‘maximising’, ‘market leader’ - and my all time favourite… ‘innovative’.

According to the dictionary, being innovative is about “producing something like nothing done or experienced or created before”. Which I find kind of ironic given that the word seems to crop up in just about every other press release I get sent.  It’s like whoever is writing a release just plonks the word in when they can’t think what else to put there. Very “innovative”!

And in the past month alone, I must have been contacted by the “market leaders” of at least five different email marketing specialist companies. I’m no mathematician, but that doesn’t quite seem to add up.

The other thing that gets me about press releases is the quotes.  For a start, everybody is “delighted” to have been appointed, to have hired somebody, to have launched a new product or to have worked on a pitch. Yes, I’m sure you all are delighted, but are you honestly telling me that people talk like this:

“I am delighted to be joining such a fantastic, market leading, innovative and forward thinking company at this exciting, dynamic and truly groundbreaking time”

Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit. But honestly, some of the releases I read are so sugary, I could probably dip them in my tea and pass on the granulated stuff altogether. It would be much more useful, and interesting, if these quotes actually said something about what you’re going to be doing in your new role, or why you’re so “delighted” to be joining in the first place.

So if there are any marketers reading this who know they’ll be sending me press releases, much as I will be “delighted” to receive them maybe you could think about toning down the puff and putting in some real “added value”?  (See what I did there…)