Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog

Continue reading "B2B Public Relations & Blogs: Policy, Resources, Process & Promotion" »

Posted by Futurelab at 7:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

Here are 50 more blogs about business-to-business marketing, bringing the total on the complete Big List of B2B Marketing Blogs to 138 blogs.

B2B marketing still lags far behind other categories of marketing blogs, so please keep letting me know via comments if you find any B2B blogs that I missed.

As always, here is the updated B2B marketing blog OPML file.

Continue reading "50 New B2B Marketing Blogs" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

No one enjoys blind dates. Whether you’re introduced by friends, the Internet, or your neighborhood matchmaker, it’s nerve-wracking to meet for the first time.

Conversely, everyone loves weddings. The flowers, the tradition, the drunken dancing at the reception, you can find something you like.

Continue reading "Lead Nurturing - Dating for B2B Companies?" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

I'm here at the MarketingSherpa B2B Demand Generation Summit in Boston. The opening session was by Sean Donahue, Senior Editor for B-to-B Marketing at MarketingSherpa. In it, he shared the top five challenges faced by B2B marketers. I was especially intrigued by challenges 3, 4, and 5.

Continue reading "Top 5 Challenges for B2B Demand Generation Marketers" »

Posted by Futurelab at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

Another popular session at Dreamforce 2007 was titled 21st Century Lead Cultivation. My favorite part was the presentation from Jason Hekl, Sr. Director of Marketing at InQuira, which focused on best practices in lead scoring.

Continue reading "Drive Revenue With Lead Scoring" »

Posted by Futurelab at 3:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

The most crowded session I attended at Dreamforce 07 was Best Practices in Lead Management. The room was PACKED beyond capacity, and to make matters worse, the AC was broken so it was sweltering.

Continue reading "Best Practices in Lead Management" »

Posted by Futurelab at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: John Caddell

Negotiating skill is partly personality, mostly hard-won experience. There are a few good books on the subject (I've found "Game, Set, Match: Winning The Negotiations Game," by Henry Kramer pretty useful, despite the silly title), but they don't substitute for getting in there across from the other party and trying to work a deal.

Continue reading "Effective Negotiations May Sometimes Mean Staying with it even after You've Lost" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: John Caddell

The benefits and risks of partnership are on display in the dispute between the French company Group Danone and its Chinese partner, Mr. Zong Qinghou, as outlined in a front-page article in today's Wall Street Journal.

Continue reading "Partner up. Go it alone. There's no one ideal way to enter a new market" »

Posted by Futurelab at 2:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

According to MarketingSherpa’s Business Technology Marketing Benchmark Guide 2007-08, 80% of decision makers who made a technology purchase believe that they found the vendor – as opposed to the vendor targeting them.

Continue reading "80% of Your New Customers Think They Found You" »

Posted by Futurelab at 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

I believe social media has an inherent bias against the realities of B2B marketing. This is the topic of my new article "What’s Wrong With Social Media For B2B Marketing", now available as part of Search Engine Land's Strictly Business column.

Continue reading "What's Wrong With Social Media For B2B Marketing" »

Posted by Futurelab at 9:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Guy Kawasaki

Because of Truemors, I’ve learned a lot about launching a company in these “Web 2.0” times. Here’s quick overview “by the numbers.”

Continue reading "By the Numbers: How I built a Web 2.0, User-Generated Content, Citizen Journalism, Long-Tail, Social Media Site for $12,107.09" »

Posted by Futurelab at 8:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Joseph Mann

In case you missed the news, the top priority for marketers in 2007 is to quantify the value of marketing programs and investments, according to the CMO Council's Marketing Outlook 2007 survey. 44% of respondents said this was their primary goal in 2007, a change from 2006 where the emphasis was on building sales.

Click image to enlarge.

Continue reading "Take Me to Your Lead Generation Optimization Leader!" »

Posted by Futurelab at 9:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: John Caddell

Every product company wants to sell solutions. Packaging products with useful complementary services can elevate a firm above commodity-provider status and provide more value to customers. Customized solutions also are more difficult for competitors to replace than standalone products.

Continue reading "For solutions providers, Account Management is king" »

Posted by Futurelab at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: John Caddell

John Jantsch's blog "Duct Tape Marketing," focused on the small businessperson, pops up with a killer post on occasion (the rest of the time, it's a bit too commercial, with lots of plugs for his book and others' products). One of the really good posts was yesterday: "Are You Investing in Long Term Marketing?"

Continue reading "Strategic marketing leverages content, connection, community" »

Posted by Futurelab at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

Here are 13 more blogs about b-to-b marketing, bringing the total on the complete Big List of B2B Marketing Blogs to 89 blogs.

B2B marketing as a group is still lagging far behind other categories of marketing blogs. Why is this?? Please keep letting me know if you find any B2B blogs that I missed.

Continue reading "Updates to Big List of B2B Marketing Blogs" »

Posted by Futurelab at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: John Caddell

Author Barbara Ehrenreich writes about personal networking in the latest issue of Forbes magazine (link--free with registration). She comes to the completely unsurprising conclusion that for most people networking is difficult and unpleasant.

Continue reading "Networking: burden or pleasure? It depends on how you approach it" »

Posted by Futurelab at 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

I came across some awesome benchmark data about B2B marketing budgets, courtesy of SiriusDecisions. Thanks to Mou Mukherjee of cadenceblog for sending me the presentation in the first place. (If you are not familiar with SiriusDecisions, you should be -- they are doing some of the best research available on B2B marketing and sales. This presentation was part of a webinar they did with Rainmaker called Bridging the Gap Between Sales & Marketing.)

Continue reading "B2B Marketing Budgets - Data From SiriusDecisions" »

Posted by Futurelab at 7:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

Here are 22 new B2B marketing blogs. Thanks to everyone who liked the list and who let me know about new blogs. As always, here is the complete Big List of B2B Marketing Blogs as well as the updated B2B marketing blog OPML file. (Right click and and save-as, then import to your reader).

Continue reading "Updates to Big List of B2B Marketing Blogs" »

Posted by Futurelab at 1:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: John Caddell

If you thought cost-plus pricing went out with the Reagan administration, read today's front page Wall Street Journal article on Parker Hannifin Corporation and the efforts by its CEO to overhaul its decades-old pricing approach.

Continue reading "Think business as usual doesn't cost you money? Check out Parker Hannifin" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

Content is critical for lead nurturing. Whether it is a case study, new research on some aspect of your industry, a how-to guide, or a whitepaper, content is what makes your lead nurturing programs work – and lead nurturing is what helps marketing drive more revenue to sales.

Continue reading "The YouTube Approach to Lead Nurturing" »

Posted by Futurelab at 4:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: John Caddell

It's called a "confidence" game, right? Why? Because you give me your confidence? No, because I give you mine. So what we have here, in addition to "Adventures in Human Misery," is a short course in psychology. - David Mamet, House of Games screenplay, p. 34 (Photo still from the MGM DVD.)

Continue reading "Candor in business storytelling" »

Posted by Futurelab at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

Strewn around my house are pens, coffee cups, calculators, USB memory sticks, and assorted swag from various companies I've met over the years. What is the purpose of all this stuff? Does having a leather portfolio with a vendor's logo on it make me more likely to buy their products?

Continue reading "B2B Branding - Why Branding Matters in B2B Marketing" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: John Caddell

I had to do some cold calling today, so naturally I worked from Jeff Thull's script. It's simply the best approach I know to keep the dignity of the customer intact while you're interrupting them with an unsolicited pitch.

Continue reading "Cold calling with dignity (yours and the prospect's)" »

Posted by Futurelab at 12:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

RainToday.com's recent report "What's Working In Lead Generation" got me thinking about the relationship of thought leadership to branding and lead nurturing. In B2B marketing, all three serve the same purpose: to establish your company as a trusted adviser, so when a prospect is ready to buy, he or she will think of you and will want to speak with your sales reps.

Continue reading "How To Use Thought Leadership To Build Brands and Nurture Leads" »

Posted by Futurelab at 12:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Alain Thys

Exactly a year ago this blog went "live" and we just wanted to thank everyone who's been part of making it something much more successful than we ever thought it would be.  Today, we've got about 25,000 regular readers, over 1,400 posts, and more importantly, our base of daily feedburner subscribers keeps growing by the week (currently at 2,500).

Continue reading "Happy Birthday Futurelab Blog" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

Countless companies end up with poor sales-marketing alignment because they suffer from Bad Lead-itis. This crippling disease can destroy marketing's credibility, waste demand generation dollars, and damage your company's brand reputation.

Continue reading "Do You Recognize the 4 Warning Signs of Bad Lead-itis?" »

Posted by Futurelab at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: John Caddell

In March's upcoming Harvard Business Review, Professors Mohan Sawhney of Northwestern Unversity and Satish Nambisan of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute define a valuable emerging role in the open innovation process--what they call an "innovation capitalist."

Continue reading "Proposing a value-adding middleman for innovation" »

Posted by Futurelab at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

Here are over 50 blogs that talk about B2B marketing, as well as a few that focus on selling, search engine marketing, and copy writing. I will update (add or remove) the list as I change the B2B marketing blogs that I track.

Continue reading "Big List of B2B Marketing Blogs" »

Posted by Futurelab at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

There are many who consider marketing in B2B to mainly concern itself with "the art of printing the corporate brochure".  Not Jon Miller.  As the latest contributor on the Futurelab blog, Jon explores new ideas and techniques in B2B marketing both on the web and in real life (yes, that still exists :-)

Continue reading "Getting Real About B2B Marketing" »

Posted by Futurelab at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Guy Kawasaki

At the CommunityNext conference I moderated this panel with the founders of six very successful web properties.

Click here for video...

Continue reading "Panel of Web Community Founders: Utter Defiance of the "Venture Capital" Model" »

Posted by Futurelab at 4:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

Continue reading "Big List of (138) B2B Marketing Blogs" »

Posted by Futurelab at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: John Caddell

Picture this. You're VP of sales, six months into the implementation of a new sales process, and you haven't moved your numbers one iota, after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on systems and training and at least that much in lost productivity.

Continue reading "Listen to stories to assess organizational change" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

Who wants to grow revenue? CMOs do, at least according to a survey by Red Herring that asked senior marketers "What Keeps CMOs up at Night?" The survey was conducted a part of  Red Herring's CMO Conference, held Feb 4-6, 2007.

Continue reading "Who Wants to Grow Revenue?" »

Posted by Futurelab at 2:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: John Caddell

By now, anyone who's acquainted with Web 2.0 tools realizes how peer-to-peer, bottom-to-top, and diagonal information sharing can greatly increase insight.

Continue reading "Web 2.0 helps sales & product insight flow and grow" »

Posted by Futurelab at 9:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

I recently received this email from a colleague who runs marketing for a security software company:

I’m getting some pushback from my CFO on the size of my proposed total marketing budget as % of forecasted revenue… Do you have any sources with basic credibility with this info that I can cite?

Continue reading "How To Sell Your Marketing Budget To Your CFO" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

Modern B2B marketing requires a new set of "left-brained" skills, including:

• Quantitative planning and forecasting,
• Rigorous marketing performance measurement, and
• Consistent execution of best-practice processes.

Continue reading "Why You Need Marketing Operations" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

The marketing blogosphere has been much abuzz recently about two topics: Blog Tag and the Z-List. (Was I tagged, I can't tell?) Ann Handley at MarketingProfs has an interesting post about the two trends, in which she likes the "humanizing" aspect of Blog Tag and the "collaboration" aspect of the Z-List.

Continue reading "When Does Social Media Fail for B2B?" »

Posted by Futurelab at 2:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) |