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Tape your mouth shut for 3 days

Surprising advice by Stuart Symington, CEO of Perishable Products Export Control Board (PPECB) in South Africa. What’s he getting at? Something deeper than just peace and quiet in his daily life, I’m sure.

How many business meetings or professional discussions have you had where you’re left feeling frustrated at being talked at the entire time without the opportunity for discussion or reflection? How many times have you yourself done that to other people?  Continue reading

The drive for more business credibility and returns from marketing

I recently read an interesting Harvard Business Review blog post “Marketing is Dead” exploring the views of CEOs on Marketing and business credibility. In the post, author Bill Lee states: “…. CEOs have lost all patience. In a devastating 2011 study of 600 CEOs and decision makers by the London-based Fournaise Marketing Group the result was that:

  • 73% of them said that CMOs lack business credibility and the ability to generate sufficient business growth
  • 72% are tired of being asked for money without explaining how it will generate increased business
  • 77% have had it with all the talk about brand equity that can’t be linked to actual firm equity or any other recognized financial metric….”  Continue reading

Best practices for using social media at a trade show

With exhibits to design and logistics to plan, it’s easy to see why so many trade show marketers neglect social media. Budgetary concerns and tough sales targets make it easy to write off social media marketing as an ‘optional extra’ for a trade show.

Social media and trade shows, however, can work together very well. With the right strategy, the right tactics, and the right best practices, your business can turn every trade show into a lucrative sales opportunity using social media marketing. Continue reading

Rapid buyer persona development

My colleagues and I were recently thrown a challenge by one of our clients to identify and describe its key stakeholder personas in half a day. On first thought, and despite our in-depth knowledge of the company and its industry (offshore engineering services), it seemed an impossible task, especially because the company has several business areas and various customer types within each of those business areas. But always up for a challenge, my colleagues and I planned a high-intensity session with the outcome of clearly defined buyer personas representing the most important revenue streams. Continue reading

Kick-start your content marketing creative process

Kick-start your content marketing creative process

Content marketing is becoming an increasingly important part of any successful online marketing strategy. The majority of big businesses have already bought into the technique, and SMEs are starting to follow suit. The power of content marketing is that it allows you to reach out and connect with your online audience in an informative, entertaining and engaging way. Continue reading

Tips for trade show exhibitors

Beloved by sales departments the world over, trade shows are an excellent platform for marketing your business. From exhibition signage design to simple deal-making tips, read on to learn six immutable tips for successfully exhibiting at a trade show.

1.     Don’t be too ‘salesy’

Many an inexperienced salesperson has blown great opportunities at a trade show by approaching it with the same mentality as they would a typical sales call. While trade shows are undoubtedly about sales, they rarely reward a hard sell mentality.

The reality is that trade shows are excellent for generating leads, and equally good for converting new leads into customers, but only if you have the right outlook and marketing approach. Continue reading

Knowledge sharing platform for a knowledge-intensive company

A new thought leadership platform encouraging stakeholder engagement and subject matter expertise has been launched by a global B2B technology company. Continue reading

What’s your company’s Return on Know-how?

Our team spends a lot of time discussing business cases – real business cases, not “feel good” benefit-based stuff, but the ones with numbers on them. We’re keen to work out, for each of the customers or prospects we speak to, where revenue can be generated and/or savings can be made by putting knowledge-sharing campaign platforms in place.

At the center of it all is a concept we call “Return on Know-how” (ROK). OMG, you may be thinking, another word dreamed up by marketers. And that’s what it is, for sure. But there’s a real point to it, too – and it’s a goodie: What potential gains or savings are hidden in the know-how of your subject matter experts? What can be done to unlock this potential? Continue reading

Is word-of-mouth best for business execs?

Conversation is more than a social media strategy. While all the attention these days seems to be on online marketing – and, sure, that’s where the excitement is, there are still plenty of B2B executives getting results from good ol’ fashioned face-to-face networking and word-of-mouth exchanges. By and large, we are social beings, and most of us still value the opinions of people in our personal networks and trusted business connections more than rather tenuous Twitter and LinkedIn connections. But what is word-of-mouth marketing worth in B2B? Find out below and find three tips for making your clients become your biggest advocates. Continue reading

Content marketing – old wine in new bottles?

Effective content marketing is based on a genuine desire to help potential customers – and can, when implemented, lead to fundamental change in company culture. But old wine is old wine…

Continue reading