Search Blog
The customer decision journey should drive content marketing strategy
Across the many frameworks available on the topic, there’s consensus that a successful B2B content marketing strategy is built on knowing the target audience, how they progress through the buying process, and their needs along that journey. Yet, it is rare for marketers to use buyer insights to inform their content market strategy. Doing so requires a documented content marketing strategy and a recent study finds that only 32% of B2B marketers have one.
Read MoreHow to Think Like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln
In honor of the upcoming Presidents’ Day, here’s a look at one of the most respected traits Washington and Lincoln shared that can provide guidance to everyone from the CEOs to product manager and market teams. They saw the world the way it was, not the way they wanted it to be, or thought it ought to be. This trait has been universally viewed as a key to their ability to develop effective strategies at two of the most critical points in our country’s history.
Read MoreWhat is the expected life cycle of a cloud application?
Expected product life cycles have traditionally informed forecasts for software demand – they could be used to help estimate the number of organizations likely to be in play any given year because their solutions had reached their natural refresh cycle. The shift to cloud applications muddies the water in terms of this traditional forecasting approach.
Read MoreMake your product’s champion, don’t search for one
Conventional wisdom says the best way to sell a B2B product or service is to find the highest level champion in the prospect organization and follow their lead. But does that approach really work? Separate studies by the Corporate Executive Board (published in the April 2015 edition of the Harvard Business Review) and the media group B2B Marketing (published in its 2015 Buyersphere Report) indicate that this may be easier in theory than in practice.
Read MoreUnintended consequences of empathy: A new Golden Rule for marketers
Making an effort to imagine yourself in your customers’ shoes may give you a false sense that you understand what your customers want. This counter intuitive statement stems from research conducted by Johannes Hattula of London’s Imperial College and his colleagues. Fortunately there are steps you can take to ensure you are not projecting your opinions onto your customers.
Read MoreCustomer-centric IT: 4 tips for technology marketers
stomer centricity is reshaping IT in many organizations, as customer experience becomes an increasingly important source of competitive advantage. We’ve seen this trend developing over the past few years and it is now gaining widespread attention. Customer centricity means aligning IT’s resources and objectives to optimize the customer experience. Increasingly, IT’s strategies, organizational structure, and role in the organization are evaluated in relation to the external customer.
Read MoreDon’t throw out the data along with the failed concept
Product management and marketing teams often use primary research to test new product and service concepts. Before investing millions of dollars and years of development efforts they want to know if the concept has legs. Sometimes the research shows that the market does not have enough appetite for the concept to justify further investment. At that point the research has done its job. But often the results can provide additional value to the organization that is forgotten.
Read MoreShould M&A due diligence incorporate primary market research?
The due diligence process for mergers and acquisitions is intended to validate the decision and minimize risk. Unfortunately the resources and rigor devoted to the activity can be undermined by common biases that distort reasoning.
Read MoreIf organizations value it, why won’t they pay for it?
A client recently asked us this questions as part of a market sizing exercise. Fortunately this client asked the question before entering the market and was able to plan accordingly. The buzz surrounding new products or technologies often attracts established vendor that can find after investing in a new category the market does not live up to their expectations in terms of market size or revenue growth. The disconnect stems from behavioral gaps in the typical market adoption curve.
Read MoreThe dynamics of today’s IT decision making
Over the past five years, some technology marketers have lost sight of one of their most important audiences – the IT department. The rise of cloud applications, mobile, IT consumerization and BYOD made many technology vendors believe that the IT department was no longer relevant. They envisioned end-users going directly to the technology providers they wanted to use and leaving IT behind to tend to a largely abandoned infrastructure. Looking back, these beliefs about the market followed the usual technology hype-cycle of over inflated expectations and a trough of disillusionment. Today we are in the slope of enlightenment and IT plays a critical role in bringing these technologies to meaningful levels of productivity.
Read More