Posts under ‘B2B Marketing’

Personalization of websites has been “the next big thing” on web trends lists for about a decade now. Major B2C sites like amazon.com are heavily personalized and provide recommendations based on visitor behaviour and have achieved major success in doing so. B2B websites are more reluctant to apply a similar model. Why is that?

At times, when working year after year on the same types of issues or challenges, we’re tempted to revert back to what was done in the past.  It worked before, so why wouldn’t it work again?  Actually, there’s a lot to be said for consistency – when it makes sense. But doing the same thing […]

A wise man once said, “Sometimes it’s not about being better, it’s about sucking less.”  In the world of marketing, often it is not the smartest one who wins - it’s the one who screws up the least.  Here are five mistakes to avoid so you don’t get beat before you start.

You must try new tactics to move forward. The safe, proven approaches you’ve used in the past are not going to be enough to move the needle to the extent your business requires. But innovation brings significant risks that you need to manage. 
Piloting — trialing an initiative on a small scale before rolling it out in full — […]

The last few years have seen significant advances in the general business competency around user experience design and usability. Prodded by industry analysts such as Forrester, and enabled with a growing suite of compelling assessment tools applied both in the laboratory and on the server, executives have begun to understand the strategic business importance of getting customer experience right.

In the face of present economic uncertainty, we can predict that some media plans will be slashed to cut cost, some will be scaled up to grab share of voice, and some will be refurbished to cut waste and improve efficiency. Each may be the right choice in your business, but readers most interested in […]

If personas have traditionally been the domain of software developers, why are they becoming so well liked and used by sales teams? What are some of the ways in which organizations are benefiting from personas? How do “buyer personas” need to be different than “design personas”? If buyer personas deal with the goals of buyers and influencers who might be relevant in a sales interaction, then to build them do we need original research on a topic that’s been broadly researched already, or can one set of personas be equally useful for numerous organizations?

Definitions vary, but most would agree that social media is any Web-based platform that allows visitors to influence the content. This includes blogs and forums where visitors can leave comments, sites that are driven by user-generated content such as Digg.com and YouTube, and social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
In general, the communication on these […]

In May 2007 Quarry fielded a study on media habits with 500 small business leaders. This group expressed an orientation to digital media that should give pause to any marketer trying to reach the SMB market using the same media mix they used last year.

Don’t put anything out there unless you have the resources to sustain it.
If you are going to blog, don’t be a control freak. Be prepared to take criticism.
Don’t limit your voice to your own Web sites. Join in the conversation, wherever it occurs.
Don’t try to publish the final word on a topic. Consider your material the launching point […]