Priorities for B2B Marketers

I came across 2 interesting pieces this week. The first, a piece from B2B Marketing on 'Rebounding from the Recession' where a debate between senior figures on the IDM's B2B Marketing Council tackled this topic. Interestingly enough, one participant claims that 'The difference between B2B and B2C has been the acknowledgement of the need to retain relationships'. I'm not sure if they are trying to say that this is a difference between B2B and B2C or whether it's taken B2B time to acknowledge the need to retain relationships'.

In both cases I disagree.

New Marketing vs Old Marketing

Email/Mobile Marketing - Direct Mail

Social Media - Events

Word of Mouth - Word of Mouth

Banner Advertising - Press Advertising

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Walking Adverts

Do you remember the heyday of the Sandwich Board? According to Wikipedia they are still in use. Well it would seem that the modern equivalent could very well be us...the consumer.

John Moore at WOMMA 2010 states that the average consumer mentions specific brands over 90 times per week in conversations with friends, family, and co-workers.

So although we do not walk around promoting brands visually as a Sandwich Board Man( although wearing a Superdry, Gio-Goi, Nike item of clothing or driving an Alfa Romeo or BMW, of course does this), we do, it seems, in our day to day conversations. It is this type of Advocacy (positive) brands aspire to tap into.

Especially when you mix in what I highlighted in a previous post about how according to Nielsen,90% of consumers trust product and brand recommendations from people they know.

So why do I need a 'refer a friend' programme?

According to Nielsen,90% of consumers trust product and brand recommendations from people they know. Socialnomics finds that only 14% trust adverts!

A Little More Conversation

Is an article written by Andrrew Walmsley. My take on the piece is that as long as the little more conversation is a little more ''good' conversation then the Brand is on the right track.

Social Media is 'all about the conversation'. There can be no excuse , therefore, to ignore the real bedrock of any conversation...and that is 'Listening' .

The ability to listen to conversations already happening before you join in is key. Any brand worth its salt realises that it needs to be able to play a part in the real world of its customers. and if that world includes Twitter, then it has to be a part of the mix. Dell is a great example of moving the conversation to where the customer was, getting closer to the customer and even demonstrating that ROI that so many non marketers on the board crave.

Is the time finally right for mobile as a B2B channel?

This was the title of a discussion on LinkedIn.

Of course this question has been rattling around in its cage for a while now. My comment ended on a note talking about how we seem to be fixated with a very narrow view of what mobile means. It is of course not purely the accessing of content via a mobile phone,which is picked up by this article on Clickz

Mobile B2B needs to look at its application on a case by case business with applications being suitable in some sectors and not in others. We need to take into account how businesses in particular at the smaller end of the spectrum actually behave much more like consumers than corporates and so our marketing should reflect that. Here mobile can play a very important role

Why should I sign up to your newsletter?

Although many of us will have multiple email addresses, the sharing of these addresses with organisations that are going to market to us is still a sign of trust.

One of the easiest ways to keep that trust is obviously not to fill a recipient's inbox with a flood of emails.

Its also important to give something back. And by that I mean giving them something non subscribers can't get or priority access to that content

Attitudinal vs Behavioural Loyalty

I recently read a whitepaper co-written by Don Peppers - www.peppersandrogersgroup.com

In it, it discusses the types of Loyalty. It describes Attitudinal Loyalty, occurring when a customer is favorably disposed to you: they like you and they trust you. The other definition of loyalty is behavioral loyalty, which is measurable by transactions: a customer is loyal if they buy repeatedly.

Of course we all want customers to be attitudinally loyal but the paper reasons that the only real business benefit of loyalty comes from behavioural loyalty.

In my opinion this is not the case. I may regularly shop at the local Tesco, but this Behavioural Loyalty is a Forced Loyalty as it is the only supermarket within easy reach . I might however on an ad-hoc basis use Waitrose..and I love the Waitrose experience so much that I recommend it to friends and family as a result of my attitudinal loyalty which results in an indirect business benefit to Waitrose.

I am surprised that Mr Peppers does not take this into account – but I am wondering if the fact that the paper was co written by Oracle’s VP of CRM Applications influenced the focus on a transactional viewpoint.

The Future is Mobile...again!

"Regarding the pace of change, we believe more users will likely connect to the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs within five years."

--The Mobile Internet Report, Morgan Stanley, 12/09

Isn't that as obvious as saying that most phone calls will be made via mobile phones than on fixed line phones?..in particular if you look at mobile devices as including phones, netbooks, e-readers,laptops..not to mention the iPad category of devices. Doies the iPad create a new category or is it just Apples Netbook?

This article seems to suggest a new ' feet-up' category . I think it's more of a 'anytime, anyplace, anything' category.