Author Archive
Conflict Resolution: How can we be both too expensive and too cheap?
I’m in the midst of a Win-Loss analysis project for a client. Lucky me! It’s one of my favorite things to do, and while I wouldn’t quite do it for free… As always - it’s been really interesting to speak with customers, as well as with the ones who got away.
I focused on the Win [...]
Too many cooks? Just how many folks does it take to make a B2B technology purchase decision
I was looking through an extract from Marketing Sherpa’s Business Technology Marketing Benchmark Guide 2007-2008, which is already yesterday’s news, since the 2008-2009 edition is now available.
One thing that struck me was their chart on how many people were involved in a technology marketing purchase of over $25K.
For small companies (100-500 employees), the [...]
Five things to keep in mind when you’re going to get up there and give a talk
One thing that most of us in marketing get to do at one point or another is get up in front of a group and give a talk. Maybe it’s to the sales force, a group of customers, seminar attendees, folks at a trade show. Maybe we’re giving a product pitch, an industry overview, a [...]
After Mary Schmidt’s "Somebody will always buy it"
Mary Schmidt has a little goodie over on her blog, where she asks the questions we all need to ask when we’re bringing a B2B technology product to market:
Who would buy it?Who would buy more than one?How many “whos” are there? (Horton may be able to hear ‘em, but can you sell to them?)
Oh, [...]
A Tiny Worm in the old Apple?
I really like and admire Apple products, but I’m nearly always too cheap to buy one of them.
The exception is my iPod, which I do love, even though I rarely use it. And even though, 6 months into my “new” laptop, I still haven’t loaded up iTunes and thus, haven’t bothered to add a couple [...]
Viral Marketing - All the Way from LA-LA Land
I received an odd e-mail the other day.
This in itself is nothing new, as I have an e-mail address in my profile, and I occasionally receive a note from someone who has read a post and wants to follow up directly rather than leave a comment. Most of these blog-spawned e-mails are very nice, and [...]
Laura Heinrich on Webinars for B2B’s
I’m not sure if it’s premium content or not (i.e., whether you need to be a paid member to get at it), but Laura Henirich has an excellent article over on Marketing Profs on incorporating webinars into your B2B planning.
Laura lays out a number of different areas - product launch, release of an analyst report, [...]
What’s in Your Swag Bag?
Last week, iMedia Connection had an interesting article entitled, “The ROI of quality swag” by Leah Messinger. (Here’s the link, but I’m not sure if you need to be a subscriber.)
Her premise is that “in an increasingly digital world, sometimes it takes something physically tangible to push your business goals further.”
I couldn’t agree with her [...]
To the Glorious Fourth!
This Opinionated Marketer is taking The Glorious Fourth off, but not without a brief comment on the flag. If you spent millions of dollars on logo design, branding, image, or whatever you want to call it, could you really come up with anything more beautiful than what we already have?
Happy Fourth of July to [...]
What Microsoft Has Meant to Marketers
This past week, Bill Gates pretty much stepped away from Microsoft, which got me thinking about what Microsoft has done for marketers and the marketing profession over the years.
First off, there are the tools of the trade that almost all of us use - those trusty stand-bys, Word and PowerPoint.
I’m old enough to remember the [...]
