B2B marketing

In many B2B companies, marketing is still regarded as a secondary, non-essential part of the business.  Whether this opinion is justified, depends on the situation.  But these days, it is an expensive opinion to hold.

Guest Post by: Andrew Spoeth

You’ve created a new white paper. Now what? Posting it on your website is just the beginning. It’s time to do more with less effort, and get the most out of every piece of content you create.

Guest Post by: Maria Pergolino

Just like everyone else, B2B marketers wear different hats in the duties they perform. In order to become successful, they need a mix of marketing skills. These skills vary in range depending on the task needed at hand.

What is the essential skill set for modern B2B marketers? Here is a basic outline of the skills required:

Guest Post by: Maria Pergolino

Knowing what’s happening in the B2B marketing industry is key to understanding current and future trends. One of the best sources of information is industry statistics.

Guest Post by: Maria Pergolino

At my previous company my success was measured by number of leads. If I hit the right number, I was in the clear. If the total lead count was high, I was awesome. If I was short of my lead goal, I had some explaining to do. Makes sense, right? More leads equals more won deals. Management could understand these metrics. It was easy for the VP of Sales to see my results via a dashboard in the CRM system. Life was good. Well, that is unless you were a sales rep. (Don’t worry. I learned the right way fast, becoming a demand generation machine!)

Guest Post by: Maria Pergolino

As marketers, we thrive off data visualization using graphics, charts and images to educate ourselves and tell our stories. Whether your B2B marketing efforts can use more information on social media, content marketing or demographics, your marketing mix can’t afford to go without these 5 useful infographics:

Guest Post by: Maria Pergolino

Recently on LinkedIn the American Marketing Association posted a question about how Apple’s new  iPad can be useful for B2B marketers. There were a lot of negative comments, saying there will be no use or impact. I disagree.   

Guest Post by: Maria Pergolino

This next B2B Marketing Thought Leader Interview is with Bill Odell, vice president of marketing at Helpstream, a Social CRM solutions company. Bill is responsible for the company’s overall marketing and go-to-market strategies and oversees all product marketing, partner marketing and corporate marketing activities. Bill has 20 years of experience leading marketing for several innovative, category creating technology companies, including Sun Microsystems, Cisco, Compression Labs – the developer of DirectTV – and Interlace Systems.

The next interview in the B2B Marketing thought leader interview series is with Christine Crandell, one of the most innovative thinkers I've met on the topics of sales and marketing alignment and marketing accountability. Christine sits on several advisory boards including Coupa and SDForum, and has held senior marketing positions at Egenera, Ariba, and many others. Her thoughts on organization and how marketing can earn credibility and "go toe-to-toe" with sales leadership are definitely worth reading.