The idea of creativity in business has been swirling around in my mind. The current economic conditions are driving our customers to think more about WHAT they sell - what are the top products, what else could we sell to existing customers, etc. Trouble is, that thinking really only operates from an internal perspective.  It's much better to ask why customers buy, how & where they do this, what are their expectations of the service wraparound, etc. In essence, you need to think creatively, albeit Inside the Box of your chosen business environment. Isn't this obvious?Now I know this sounds...

By Graeme Foux, Knexus CEO Cloud computing and Software-as-a-service are two of the hottest topics of discussion in the technology community today. So if you’re a marketer, you may feel now is the moment to turn away and find something more interesting and relevant to read. Well don’t, because this is a topic that has the potential to be hugely liberating for marketers. The sooner you grasp the concepts, the quicker you can deploy this insight to create great digital experiences for your customers and enhanced revenues for your company. So what is ‘Cloud Computing’. Put simply, with Cloud Computing...

RM: those three little letters have been the cause of so much pain for so many marketers. Given the many and varied examples of CRM catastrophies from the 90s, it’s really no wonder that many marketers still run for cover when they hear that particular TLA. Of course, CRM’s fundamental premise (a centralised approach to customer data and contact) was sound, and remains so. However, the problem came – arguably – once this philosophy had become confused with technology. CRM solutions became an end rather than a means, with many implementations failing because they were either too complex, or because...

I’ve been talking to people about ‘crowdsourcing.’ They’ve listened to me, and then looked at me like I’m a twat. So I started to doubt my own visionary brilliance and thought maybe I’d best shut up. But then again, I’ve never been one to run from a stupidity contest so I thought I’d persevere. In years to come you can all look back and say, “That McKee bloke – genius.” Or, alternatively, “twat.” Crowdsourcing broadly means using the power of many to solve problems. Rather than rely on a single person within an organisation, whole companies their clients and people...

There’s nothing like a recession to focus the mind, and in the case of B2B marketing, our attention is honing in on ROI, cost-effectiveness, speed-to-market and measurability. In other words, digital. In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a revolution going on, and if you’re not on the bandwagon, you’re going to get left behind. New formats and variations are popping out left right and centre,  as practitioners seek to understand and incorporate new opportunities. But as we get increasingly caught up in the clamour for social media, UGC, podcasts, etc. we risk forgetting about the digital channel which has been...

I was very interested in the discussion surrounding my recent post Demand Generation – out of the blue. Those who responded were split between agreeing with me that demand generation is something new and exciting, and those who believed it’s something that good marketers have been doing for two decades, only they called it something else. I would certainly defer to Tim Hazlehurst’s judgement on this!...

It seems that in a tough financial market, Marketing Directors have the ability to control their budgets, evaluate suppliers and manage business requirements, <>but can no longer be trusted to sign off any expenditure. I have spoken with some clients and they have seen signatory powers reduced to around 10%, so from £100,000 to £10,000. A professional services firm we are currently in the final stages of agreeing a contract with, has the proposal sitting on the Global CEO’s desk. 12 months ago it would have been signed in two weeks by the marketing director. The new process has resulted...

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...