Wide Angle

While the English language is certainly a common denominator in the business world, assuming everyone speaks it is definitely ill-advised.  So how does a marketing team ensure its product materials are accurate in another language?  One executive poses this question in our recently-launched Marketing Org & Ops Forum, asking “What are the best practices in assessing the quality and correctness of translation service jobs?” Read More »

(Note: This is Part 4 of our 6-part series on marketing planning. Part 1, “Making the Case for Higher Spend“,  can be found here. Part 2, “Selecting Metrics“, can be found here. Part 3, “Marketers Squeezing Productivity“, can be found here. Check back here every Wednesday in August and September for a new installment!)

As you’re preparing for another year of marketing planning, ask yourself these three questions:

• Do our marketing plans reflect our company’s overall strategic objectives?
• Are our marketing plans based primarily on incremental changes to last year’s activities?
• Even if we know that marketing is making progress, can we tie our activities to business objectives?

We all know what the answers here should be, but how many of us actually get it right? Read More »

What are the limits of the Nature vs Nurture debate?  Was I really a St. Louis Cardinals fan at birth?  (of course).  One friend of mine seems predisposed towards the Jersey Shore.  Is it in her nature?  (well, she is from New Jersey).

I’ve even heard echoes of the debate when members refer to their employers:

“It’s our nature to follow very specific processes”

“Our culture hasn’t changed in 85 years”

“Our leadership believes that our go-to-market strategy from 2002 is still relevant”

“Our brand personality mirrors one thing: our company’s history”

In other words, some members claim that Nature trumps Nurture.  That the innate qualities of a firm’s culture, leadership, brand personality and politics (Nature) eclipse the impact of externalities and experiences (Nurture). Read More »

To be a high-tech marketer these days is to have it slightly better than most – small degrees in a recessionary economy, but better nonetheless. Tech companies are outperforming analysts’ earnings estimates as Droids, iPhones, and Torches find thumbs more than willing to take the first step toward carpal tunnel. But how do the best high-tech companies – particularly those in the B2B space – keep positive momentum while douple-dip fears stoke market stagnation? Read More »

Often times in an organizational structure, the approval chain of command can be quite unclear.  Logically, the CEO would make all the executive decisions, and the CMO would sign off on all marketing decisions.  But is it really efficient or even necessary for the big cheese to approve everything the company makes in his or her respected department?  Seeing as there are more than likely bigger fish to fry, it probably isn’t. 

Questions about organization structure are very popular in our recently-launched Marketing Org & Ops Forum, where one executive question asks, “What type of communications get what type of approval?”

Read More »

(Note: This is Part 3 of our 6-part series on marketing planning. Part 1, “Making the Case for Higher Spend“,  can be found here. Part 2, “Selecting Metrics“, can be found here.  Check back here every Wednesday in August and September for a new installment!)

Early results from the Council’s ongoing marketing budget and spend survey suggest that Marketers are (understandably) cautious as they look ahead to 2011.  With the cooldown in businesses re-stocking their inventories and consumers continuing to keep pursestrings drawn tight, budgets appear to be flat to marginally up. Read More »

Do B2B marketers influence buying criteria these days?

What’s the goal of most thought leadership strategies?  Are they successful?

And our customers – when do we make first contact?  Are they about to buy or still deciding?

Piqued your curiosity, right?  We are passionately interested in the answers to these questions – so interested, in fact, that we’ve launched a short survey in order to collect your opinions.  We’ll post findings as soon as we have enough responses – help us by completing the survey!  As an additional incentive, if you are a B2B marketer and answer by Tuesday August 17^th you will be entered in a drawing for a $50 Amazon gift card (or a donation to the charity of your choice).

(Note: This is Part 2 of a 4-part series on marketing planning. Part 1, “Making the Case for Higher Spend“,  can be found here. Check back here every Wednesday in August for a new installment!)

B2B marketing organizations today are emphasizing the transfer of ideas to customers (just consider the rise of terms like “thought leadership”, “consultative selling” or “solutions”).  This makes sense – done right, an insight-based approach is one of the few ways suppliers can avert pure price-based competition. Additionally, our research shows that insight is valued by customers in the long term.  “Teaching” activities such as offering unique perspectives on the market or helping the customer navigate alternatives strongly predict loyalty.

It follows that marketing plans this year should have a strong insight orientation.  Naturally the marketing plan will align to broader organizational strategy, but the marketing objectives that support company strategy should be grounded in delivering insight that changes customers’ valuation of your offering. Read More »

(Note: This is Part 1 of a 4-part series on marketing planning. Check back here every Wednesday in August for a new installment!)

Don’t know if it’s time to spend more on marketing?  Unsure how to convince the CFO?  Pat LaPointe – managing partner at NPV Marketing, a leading marketing measurement firm – recently spoke to our members about how to justify spend increases. Read on for a summary of his top tips.

NPV’s research shows that ‘historical spend’ is still the number one means of allocating marketing budget, but lacks both rigor and credibility with the CFO.  What CFOs want isn’t certainty about the ROI of marketing spend (no business investment has a certain ROI, e.g., building a new plant in a developing country), but rather clearly stated assumptions and a sound understanding of risk factors. You can make a solid business case that will pass the CFO ‘sniff test’ by taking the 5 steps below. Read More »

WD-40, the famed degreasing and rust-preventing agent, is widely known for its versatility.  As the story goes, it was originally designed and marketed in the aerospace industry to aid in airplane maintenance. But through the years, thousands of new applications were found and problems solved.  Everything from lubricating door-hinges to de-squeaking bedsprings to freeing tongues stuck to frozen metal in wintertime.  The value of a can of WD-40 has undoubtedly increased in the mind of consumers as its perceived utility increased.

The reality is, most B2B companies are much more capable of doing something very similar.  One example that we’ve found is from Dow Chemical.  Like many B2B companies, Dow has a broad array of products and services and interacts with their customers in many different ways.  But, through surveys and conversations with their sales reps, they’ve found that there are often pockets of customers within every customers segment that tend to value a particular part of Dow’s offer far more than other customers in the same segment. Read More »