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Improving the B2B Customer Experience
Accenture recently released the results of a study of how B2B companies perform in providing the customer experience (CX) B2B markets want today. They don’t expect to buy enterprise software or raw materials on their smartphone. But they do want their experience to be focused on their needs and for complexity to be reduced as much as possible.
Read MoreUsing research for content marketing
A recent Content Marketing Institute study found that 44% of B2B marketers use research reports in their content marketing strategy. Isurus regularly conducts custom studies to provide data for content marketing initiatives; the sponsoring client leverages the results to create reports, webinars, infographics, whitepapers, microsites, and a range of social and email marketing to promote and share the content.
Read MoreFirst mover or fast follower for entering new markets?
Different studies in back-to-back issues of The Harvard Business Review make conflicting claims about the importance of being the first to market. Can they both be true?
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 MoreUncover hidden causes of slow adoption rates for more accurate opportunity assessment
Why does the adoption rate of many new enterprise technologies fall short of expectations? The answer is often simple: The market isn’t ready. It may have an interest in the technologies and understand the potential benefits but practical realities prevent the market from buying. Understanding these barriers will lead to a more accurate market opportunity assessment, and improved adoption rates.
Read MoreRevolutions in Data Analytics
The Independence Day holiday is a good time to talk about revolutions. We are all inundated with stories about big data and analytics revolutionizing how companies use data to run their businesses. As useful and powerful as these tools are turning out to be, the biggest data analysis revolution of all time arguably took place in 1786 when Scottish Engineer William Playfair invented the bar, line and pie chart That is not a typo: We have been using the same tools to visualize data for over 200 years.
Read MoreBuilding the corporate brand
A new book “The People Powered Brand: A Blueprint for B2B Brand and Culture” makes a compelling case that the oft-neglected B2B corporate brand is actually of greater importance than product brands and that more companies should treat the corporate brand as a valuable asset.
Read MoreFinding the right amount of edgy for B2B advertising
A tension exists between most marketers and their advertising agencies. Agencies want to push the envelope as far as they can to create advertising that cuts through the clutter and engages the audience. Marketers—especially B2B marketers—tend to be conservative and worry that edgy advertising will alienate customers and prospects. Who’s right? Research conducted by Jonah Berger of the Wharton School and Zoey Chen of the University of Miami indicates that both may be.
Read MoreConsistency of Experience and Customer Satisfaction
The March 2014 edition of McKinsey Quarterly makes the case that providing a consistent experience across all customer interactions is more important to satisfaction and loyalty than the performance in individual interactions. This runs counter to conventional market research wisdom, which says that not all customer experiences are equal in driving customer satisfaction and that the goal of research is to uncover the key drivers. While we are not ready to endorse McKinsey’s point of view just yet, it does deserve consideration.
Read MoreBias lives in the execution, not the approach
Sometimes in the buzz over new research tools the practitioners and media are overzealous in identifying insights that the new tool provides that old tools miss. In reality the problem typically isn’t with the old tools, it is with how they are used. But it’s always easier and more interesting to grab onto the next new thing than it is to address the misuse of existing tools and process.
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