By  Ian Irving, Director of Corporate at leading experiential agency RPM The B2B industry has a more wary approach to embracing new mediums in comparison to the B2C market.  Whilst consumer brands have been quick to jump on emerging communication methods, business brands have often relied on more traditional mediums. Whilst it can be argued that this approach has proved effective in the past, I don’t think that the traditional thinking behind B2B marketing and events has been challenged enough.  With the recession still taking hold, it's time for B2B marketers to reassess the marketing mix and take a closer look at...

I was just on our B2B Marketing LinkedIn Group (a plug already!) and I read a response to a question I have heard a lot lately. “Where do I put my marketing spend in 2010?” Do I keep a good mix or bin traditional marketing in favour of digital, as it’s cheaper. The thing is, in today’s market I think this general talk of shifting away from traditional spend to digital is already outdated. “Digital” is not new anymore, I know we’re not yet hanging out with Star Trek's Captain Picard but come on; we’re online most of the day...

Corporate hospitality. Is it going to flourish as companies try to secure the loyalty of their clients in the face of difficult economic conditions, or is it going to die as budgets are cut and redirected to the tried, tested and instantly measurable? I’ve never really been big on corporate hospitality. I don’t have the slightest idea how cricket works. I have a similar problem with the ‘Corporate Golf Days’. So either I’m not personable enough to be invited on corporate hospitality days or I avoid them because they get in the way of getting on with it. But that’s...

We held the fourth B2B Marketing Awards last night (Thursday November 6th) and I’m sat here nursing the end of a hangover feeling a mixture of pride and relief. Pride at both the fantastic job done by our internal team, and our agency, to make the event happen, and at the industry generally for embracing the event so whole-heartedly, and helping us make it the show-piece event in the B2B calendar. Relief that it seemed to off pretty much without a hitch.Awards are obviously great for media owners for many reasons, but the strength of these awards does more than...

Demand generation is a subject that seems to have come from almost nowhere. One moment it’s something muttered about by technology vendors, and effectively ignored by everyone else in marketing; the next, we’re running a half day conference on it with 90 people in attendance (held at the Century Club, London on September 23, in conjunction with Mardev and sponsored by Vtrenz).From an organiser’s perspective, the event went extremely well, with three excellent speakers (Professor Merlin Stone, Zina Manda of Mardev and Pete Jakob of IBM), who provided three very different views and insights into this emerging area. The audience...

I had hoped to write a few words about the IDM B2B Marketing Conference 2008 the day after the event [8 April 2008]. However, my hangover did not permit it – post event drinks are a must! Now it is Monday, I am feeling fresh and ready to share my thoughts…   We are big fans of the IDM. Over the past few years, they have made a great effort to cater for the needs of the B2B marketer. Not only do they run specific B2B marketing courses, but they also run this quality annual B2B Marketing conference.   It...

What a great day it was! Over 200 B2B practitioners listening to a really high quality conference programme - certainly the best I've been to in a while. If I had to pick a clear favourite, it would have to be Chris Warwick, VP of acquisition marketing at Hoovers and the queen of search  marketing and search engine optimisation (SEO). Not only was she the finest-looking speaker of the day, she was also exciting to listen to and learn from because she shared so much about Hoovers online marketing successes and challenges, warts and all. Lifting up the hem of...