It struck me recently that marriage and marketing have at least one thing in common: both of them work best when they have open and honest communications. Read the rest of this entry »
You’ve heard the 50 year old quote “Half of our advertising is working. We just don’t know which half.” Yet, it’s astonishing how many CEOs at B2B companies still accept vague marketing performance as a fact of life.
Batting 500 may be great in baseball, but not in marketing or sales. CEOs have to demand that every marketing activity has a measurable ROI. No more strikeouts. No more pop ups. Marketing objectives like branding and positioning are simply a means to an end. The true measure of marketing success has to be sales success.
In today’s Internet-enabled world marketing has to be held accountable. Why? Because B2B buyers have changed. They no longer wait for sales people to inform them about products. They are more independent. According a July 2007 survey of buyers in the chemical industry, less than 28% said they rely on sales people for information on new products. Buyers are out there on the web beginning the buying process long before your sales people call. Without marketing, you will be left on the bench. So be aware. Be demanding. Be a winner.
For those who don’t watch The Office, the sitcom parodies the 9-to-5 business world through the lives of employees at Dunder-Mifflin — a B2B company in the paper industry. In this season’s second episode, the company faces a top executive who wants to bring Dunder-Mifflin into the digital age with a new Web site to replace one that has long been under construct