When it comes to sharing experiences about products and services, it seems most people don’t abide by the age-old advice that: “if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”  As my colleague Ana wrote last week, a big focus of our B2B research this year is examining the role of word-of-mouth in B2B purchase decisions. B2B is an increasingly networked world in which purchasers are demanding more and more non-supplier authored information about their prospective purchases. “Push” marketing is giving way to “pull” and the social tactics already at work in the B2C world are creeping in – and quickly. Read More »

• Google’s efforts to revitalize its search engine have spawned another new product: “+1″ [WSJ]
• Some frequently-asked-questions about +1 [Mashable]
• Design your mobile apps well: a botched mobile experience actually drives consumers to competitors [Mobile Commerce Daily]
• Major League Baseball hires a Social Media Ambassador to do…something [Mashable]
• Google’s ultra high-speed broadband program is coming to Kansas City [The Official Google Blog
• Microsoft's Global Chief Strategy Officer, Craig Mundie, says tablets might be a short-lived trend [Sydney Morning Herald]
• News in the CRM space: Salesforce buys social media monitoring platform Radian6 [Techcrunch]
• Spike, the dude-centric TV channel aimed at 18-35 year-old males, will become a little less dude-centric [NYT]
• A big question for social sites: follow the terms-of-service to the letter, or allow platforms to be used in political unrest, like that in Egypt? [NYT]
• Beverage brand Fuze will launch its first TV campaign, featuring anthropomorphized fruit [AdAge]
• In other Coke news, the company will introduce two new mobile offerings: Sprite City and Coke Drink [Mobile Marketer]
• Do major brands have advertising contingency plans in the event of an NFL lockout? [Adweek]
• Expedia, the online travel aggregator, will introduce a mobile booking app in the next few weeks [Internet Retailer]
• Social media made simple: start small, then scale (our view: it’s not quite that simple) [AdAge]

Senior executives who are effective at talent management generate up to 7% more revenue than their less dedicated peers.  Unfortunately, more than 80% of executives are either uncommitted to talent management, ineffective at it, or worse—both.

Talent management, though, is not a matter of skill (most executives have the business skills necessary) or time (effective executives and ineffective executives spend roughly the same amount of time on talent management): the issue is focus.  Executives should approach talent management strategically—managing key talent like a corporate asset that is developed and deployed in support of business objectives.

Becoming a Talent Champion outlines five key activities executives should focus on in place of day-to-day staff management, including building the high potential bench, holding the senior team accountable for talent outcomes, and owning the organization’s talent strategy.  To learn more, download a complimentary copy of this new publication or order the eBook.

MLC Members, check out our best talent management tools and insights in our Talent Management Topic Center.

“Branded content” was one of the hottest buzz words at this year’s SxSW – and for good reason: a full 25% of the average marketing budget is now spent on content and content distribution. Branded content featured in a broad range of presentations dealing with everything from journalism standards, to real-time marketing, to bringing brand mascots into the digital age. Here are a few tips and recommendations from the best talks. Read More »

Our B2C research on the consumer purchase process is suggesting that consumer habits and routines are a large driver of repurchase and recommendation. Habits are behaviors that are repeated regularly and tend to occur subconsciously. The repeated behavior actually develops neural pathways in the brain, making the behavior easier to complete as its repetition increases. Essentially, our brain creates habits for efficiency and to free up space for more conscious decision-making.

The power of habits is undeniable and brands have long recognized the need to understand them. Read More »

(The following is a guest post from David Sroka, President and CEO of Point of Reference, a customer referral program provider.)

The marketing department in B2B firms is typically responsible for producing “evidence” of satisfied customers in the form of case studies, quotes, press releases and videos. This customer content has plenty of uses and users, but arguably, the heaviest consumer is the sales force. Like other marketing “investments,” there’s an imperative to make decisions that garner the biggest bang for the buck. So how should the marketing department decide how to spend its finite budget when it comes to sales-accelerating assets like customer content? Start by considering the current range of available content relative to where it’s needed in the sales cycle. For instance, press releases and one-page success stories are perfectly appropriate early on in the sales cycle, but less meaningful and effective in the middle to later stages.  Full ROI case studies, often 5-10 pages in length, are overkill for the early stages when buyers are merely tire kicking.

To provide a framework for this approach we created a tool to help you link various content types to various sales stages: Read More »

It used to feel like a consultation – customers calling you early on asking how you can help them. Now it feels more like scratching a lottery ticket at the end of the buying process, knowing you can’t alter what’s printed under the security coating – you’ve either been chosen or you’re not. This year, we have heard repeatedly from our members that the B2B purchasing process feels increasingly out of their hands as customers shifted to doing much of the research and comparisons on their own, turning to suppliers only very late in the game. Informally, our B2B members feel that 70% (or thereabout) of the buying process is completely out of their control, and they’re grasping onto the tail end of the purchase process which used to be much more malleable. Is that fear warranted? Read More »

By Ana Lapter

Over the last few weeks, we’ve had numerous discussions with members about the increasing influence of Word of Mouth (WOM) in relation to B2B purchasing decisions.

One academic study attempted to demonstrate that expert power is the most important determinant of influence inside a buying center, especially in environments involving risky purchases, as well as large purchasing committees not facing significant time pressure. The author defined expert power as an audience’s faith in a source’s knowledge. But, what defines an “expert”? In my view, any worker engaged in generating corporate value by using technology tools, processes and information is a knowledge worker, and, therefore, an expert. To build knowledge, many of these workers are increasingly leveraging tools (social media, search engines, external survey platforms, etc) and information residing outside the corporate walls and spheres of influence. Read More »

Two quick admissions:  I am a cynic at heart.  I am not an American Idol regular.

Yet somehow I found myself watching Idol last Wednesday night and I was struck by their authentic call to action in support of the people devastated by the tragedy in Japan.  In case you missed it, the show began with the hosts announcing that revenue generated from music downloads after the show would be donated to Japanese relief efforts.  Idol certainly wasn’t the first to make an appeal to the American people but whereas the cynic in me often jumps to the commercial reasons that companies get involved in philanthropy, I had a different feeling last night.  Here’s why: Read More »

• Aflac fired Gilbert Gottfried, the voice of its iconic duck, after a series of insensitive tweets about the Japanese earthquake; will hold auditions for replacement via Monster.com [NYT]
• RIM will release its PlayBook tablet, a competitor to iPad, on April 19 [WSJ]
• CNN has gained significant audience share in the wake of disasters and armed conflicts in the last few weeks [NYT]
• The Wall Street Journal will begin selling single issues for iPad this week [Mashable]
• Big players are beginning to invest in mobile payments infrastructure [NYT]
• How social networking is presenting significant challenges in product innovation and development [HBR]
• Australian Parliament holds hearing into under-age users of Facebook [Telegraph (Australia)]
• Share this with your HR colleagues: 5 Challenges for Human Resources in a Digital World [Mashable]
• High-profile failures might signify the end of “silly” social media [AdAge]
• When it comes to Twitter, celebrity endorsements usually don’t pay off [Clickz]
• How to build an effective social selling platform: research, listen, and manage your reputation [HubSpot Blog]
• Revenues from local online advertising set to double by 2015 [PaidContent]
• Red Bull releases augmented reality racing game [Mobile Marketer]
• Social networking is beginning to reach the saturation point, according to a recent report [eMarketer]
• Shared experiences (aka social networking) can make TV more fun [Millenial Marketing]