Topic "Business or Consumer Marketing"

My boss thinks business marketing is the same ...

Jan Lagast — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 11:06:38 +0200

"My boss built his carreer in consumer marketing, and he now uses his old tricks like branding and image marketing in our business arena. I told him this world is different, but he does not want to aknowledge he could be wrong on this matter. So we are spending loads of money on corporate campaigns with one of the leading agencies, rather than spending time and money on individual relationship building."

Are marketing scientists being over-protective about bringing unfinished research in the open?

Jan Lagast — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:56:22 +0200

The past year, I have noticed that a lot of marketing scientists appreciate to openly discuss their field of research with marketing practicioners -- many of them even mention they want a more intense collaboration with the business arena for the sake of their own research. Vice versa, discussing marketing topics with scientists is often an eye-opening and knowledge deepening experience to me, and I hear similar voices from many colleagues. So far for the good news.

Customers who recommend you, are more likely to be loyal

Jan Lagast — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 01:26:18 +0200

"If a customer wants to recommend you to other companies, the chances are higher that the customer is going to be a loyal customer in the future."

Start with the heavy influencers in the community

Jan Lagast — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:18:15 +0200

When you are trying to enter a new market, or launching a new product on an existing market, try to find the major influencers in the professional communities of your buyers first, before attacking the buying center members from the most promising clients.

Where do technology buyers obtain information? And how do they use it?

Hans De Keulenaer — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 07:00:00 +0200

Technology buyers in developed countries have access to a wide variety of information sources. Therefore, the finding where US technology buyers get their information is surprising:"

...72% of technology buyers claimed that up to 75% of their knowledge of technology comes from vendor-sponsored content."

Where buyers obtain information will strongly depend on industry and country.

For example, in Germany has a culture of strong industry associations and high quality trade press. It will not come as a surprise that professional associations and their magazines are a prime source of information.

No salesman !

Jan Lagast — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 18:14:23 +0200

This weekend, a friend of mine told me about an industrial customer explicitely asking him NOT to talk to a salesrep. "I do not fly to Belgium to talk to a salesman. I am only interested in visiting your site when I can meet with the CTO", were the words of his customer.

When to send a salesforce out in the field?

Hans De Keulenaer — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 12:24:31 +0200

The question: if your market requires a direct marketing approach, how much turnover per customer do you need to generate? Or put otherwise, considering the length of your sales funnel, and its successful closure rate, what order size justifies sending a sales person or team to a customer?

If your typical account is over 1 M$ per year, stop worrying about this question. Do whatever it takes within reason to acquire or maintain the account.

On the other extreme, if a good spot order in your business is 25,000 - 50,000 $, you probably cannot afford the direct approach unless you have lots of potential customers concentrated in a confined geographical area.

Networking pays off in business marketing

Jan Lagast — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:12:59 +0200

Although one should not network with the sole purpose of immediately doing business with the people one is networking with, it is a powerful means for getting introduced to people one does not easily get in touch with. And since business marketing is about direct sales and building a prospect and client base step by step, it is worth the effort to include networking in a business marketing plan.

Why only 2 types of marketing?

Hans De Keulenaer — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 19:03:51 +0200

Is a division between consumer and business marketing adequate? It suffices to look at brandchannel's 8 basic criteria to define business marketing to realise that business and consumer marketing are extremes in a spectrum, while a major part of marketing activities need a hybrid approach.

Would you split corporate and marketing communications?

Jan Lagast — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 20:42:50 +0200

In some industrial organizations, corporate communications is a staff function with a direct reporting link to the executive committee, whereas marketing communications is part of the sales & marketing organization and hence reports to the sales & marketing manager -- or an executive with a similar title.

Is this split a good or a bad idea?