Wide Angle

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 »

(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 »

We just held our inaugural business-to-business meeting looking at our content engagement strategies and what it really means to be a thought leader (and whether that’s even the right goal).

Not surprisingly, when talking about current challenges, we had lots of conversation around the consensus-based sale – these days, you need to convince more people with different interests to agree on any purchase.  But how do you get everyone to agree to a purchase, especially if it’s the slightest bit disruptive?  Clearly, we have a stronger need for advocates inside an organization than ever before.

For Marketing to support that, one thing we need to do is engineer our content to make people want to share it.  But how? Read More »