B2B Marketing Blog
June 2009 Archives

Mergers and the branding conundrum

June 26, 2009 12:21 PM | By Joel Harrison
As any good marketer knows, no brand can last forever: sooner or later even the strongest will fall from grace, be replaced or superseded… or possibly all three. And in B2B, where there is less of an emotional brand relationship to drive longevity than for consumer brands, shelf lives will be shorter. Certainly one of the most common catalysts for brand reappraisal is merger or acquisition, as identified by Edward Appleton and further highlighted by Oracle’s agreed acquisition of Sun. Quite what the brand or marketing implications of this landmark deal will be, remains to be seen. Given the strength...
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Search Agencies - not walking the talk?

June 26, 2009 10:48 AM | By Gifford Morley-Fletcher
We're currently looking at making some changes to the Base One web site, and naturally I have been tasked with ensuring that whatever we do is fully optimised for search. As search and social media are a core part of our offering, I decided to look at some of my competitors' sites to see how they go about ensuring they achieve page one positioning on Google for relevant search terms. I looked at some of what I would consider to be the top UK search agencies, and searched using obvious terms to see how well they were positioned. To my...
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CRM is dead – long live CIM!

June 25, 2009 2:27 PM | By Iain Lovatt
Let’s be frank, building customer loyalty and gaining share of wallet are strategic imperatives for all businesses. Most marketers should be very aware that research highlights that an increase in customer retention by only five per cent can lead to a significant uplift in profitability. Combined with the fact that acquiring a new customer is five to 10 times more costly than retaining an existing one, it is no surprise that many companies are desperately looking into retention strategies. The challenge lies in combining excellent retention activity while maintaining acquisition activity – fundamental for long term business survival.To achieve this,...
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Is there any particular reason why all of the bloggers on the B2B Marketing website are men?

June 22, 2009 5:57 PM | By Edward Weatherall
I was thinking about writing my next blog for the boys at B2B.  Looking through the various blogs, I suddenly realized that it is just that - “The Boys”. So, is it just that the voices and faces of B2B agencies tend to be men? Are the women of the industry the quiet unsung heroes? The only tool I could find to measure this (and prove me right or wrong) was the Forrester Groundswell http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html  which profiles Social Media contributors. (Although the data is consumer) it does seem that, in the UK, men contribute more than women. In the US, women contribute more. A...
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The Recessionary Challenge to Creativity

June 22, 2009 9:15 AM | By Richard Bush
I’ve been feeling a little anxious recently and I haven’t been able to pin down exactly what is causing it. Business is good, generally our clients are doing well considering the worst recession in living memory, yet I’m feeling uneasy and I think I now know why.It came to me as I was reading my favorite magazine, Autocar (yes I know, I’m just a big boy) and on the inside front cover was a beautiful advert for the new Audi R8 V10. What was so beautiful about it? It had no copy just a wonderfully shot image of the car...
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The PowerPoint says NO…

June 18, 2009 4:17 PM | By Richard Lloyd
When you turn up to listen to experts exposing real-life examples of their social media prowess, the last thing you expect is the technology to be the biggest let down.When the Mic says NO, and the PowerPoint says NO too (both of which unfortunately happened at the B2B Marketing/Mardev Social Media Revolution seminar in Manchester), it’s a timely reminder even as the social media revolution is upon us that the Billy basics shouldn’t be forgotten. Without exception all those speaking at the event heralded positive results from their use of social networking for business.  Whether it was Twitter, Facebook or...
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Is Marketing Just a Sales Support Function in B2B?

June 15, 2009 1:36 PM | By Edward Appleton
  I recently attended a sales and marketing workshop designed to improve the interaction between marketing and sales. It was moderated by an external consulting company, results I have yet to see, but here’s the take out as I saw it.   Marketing in b2b doesn’t sit naturally in the organisational driving seat as it would in a b2c organisation – its internal influence depends on General Management’s positioning of marketing.   Sales people, especially those managing large key accounts, have a lot of customer knowledge and thereby power and know it. This can be an advantage if leveraged correctly....
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'Alternative' marketing goes mainstream

June 11, 2009 12:50 PM | By Scot McKee
I've always been suspicious of anyone introducing themselves as an 'Entrepreneur'. It's one of those words I find impossible to say out loud. Women don't seem to like the word 'moist', but for me, it's 'entrepreneur'. Eww. I'm less disturbed when the term is used to describe someone else. It's the self-use of the word that bugs me. So, “Richard Branson is an entrepreneur”, is acceptable. “Hello, I'm Bob. I'm an entrepreneur”, isn't. See what I mean? Wanker. So when I was relatively relaxed as introductions were made at a client meeting and the marketing director said, “...and this is...
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Don't hurt me Arch...I'm only little!

June 9, 2009 3:12 PM | By Richard Lloyd
Did we really need another survey to tell us that almost one in five SMEs have breached the Data Protection Act (DPA)?  Or, that in half of all SMEs there is no one assigned with responsibility for data protection?Being little or not is no excuse to ignore the DPA but do B2B firms, in particular, always take into account that the DPA also applies to them?  In the media the focus is always on the personal and individual.  So much so, many forget that business data is also at a personal level – when have you ever met someone within...
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Data Q&A: Data enhancement

June 8, 2009 1:06 PM | By Meg de Jong
Many B2B databases contain only the headline stats about their prospects and customers. What techniques should marketers use to enhance this data and make it more effective for marketing purposes?...
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Bottom-Up Branding – or How to Make an Impact without Creating Chaos

June 7, 2009 6:13 PM | By Edward Appleton
 So, as I was saying…..branding in B2B seems to be a sort of white space area, with the marketing people in the workshops I lead very open to the idea of investing more time and energy on it.   A topic which raised much discussion was which type of branding would make most sense for operational b2b marketers, and how to execute simply. Most of the strong b2b brands identified  – ABB, Bosch, BASF for example – were corporate brands, managed at top management level, and with CEO approval necessary, encompassing multiple business units. Many in the groups found this prospect daunting,...
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The rise of the new buyer

June 2, 2009 12:05 PM | By Stuart Small
Within many organisations, I sense there is a growing readiness to challenge everything and to ask searching questions.You have no doubt heard this in your own organisations: “Why are we doing it that way?”,  “Are we in the right markets?” or “How can we make this better, cheaper, faster, etc?” Marketers who sit at the centre of their organisations can lead this process. They can help their companies evolve and change to continue to prosper or, in some cases, even survive.However the challenge can now come from any source. Internally, a more diverse group of functions might feel empowered to...
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Workshop: Are B2B Brands so different from B2C Brands?

June 1, 2009 11:39 AM | By Edward Appleton
How do b2b brands differ from b2c brands? What are the rules for creating a strong b2b brand in the age of social networking, and how do they differ from those of a b2c brand? I gained some interesting insights in workshops I conducted recently with a team of b2b marketing professionals coming up with their views – I split the session into two groups to cover either the b2b or a b2c perspective.   So – the strong b2b brands mentioned (ABB and Bosch were quoted) were regarded as leaders in their category, omnipresent, with a broad range of...
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