Marketing in the right direction: Barloworld Logistics
Kate Stubbs deals with some big challenges as marketing manager for Barloworld Logistics. To start with, she’s marketing an intangible: supply chain management doesn’t come in a box with a part number and a price tag. She’s also working in an industry dominated by solid, practical men who know the nuts-and-bolts of freighting stuff from [...]
B2B branding: a profit-pumping heart
This post first appeared as an online article in Marketing Mix, South Africa’s magazine for intelligent marketers.
Brands mean ownership
We can all recall an ad that lost its link with the brand: “Great! Clever, sharp, funny, hard-hitting. What company was it?” Or, even worse, ‘What was the product?’ No brand: no ownership.
In B2B marketing, branding is about [...]
B2B marketing and sales: bridging the divide
The graphic below is from Geoffrey Moore’s book, Crossing the Chasm, and illustrates how new technology is typically adopted by the market.
The bell-curve can also be used to develop synergy between marketing and sales, creating a united approach to customer-management – building sales, margins and loyalty
Where do I sign?
Although it’s concerned with the marketing of new technologies, the principles of the Adoption [...]
Don’t trample the rules
This article is from B2B Marketing Magazine
In the rush for instant marketing gratification, don’t trample the rules!
By Tim Hazlehurst
IAS b2b Marketing
Now that the B2B marketing chips are down, it is easy for marketers to be drawn into tempting but subjective routes that are offering sales salvation when the board is desperate for results.
A lot of people (Bob [...]
Re-positioning B2B brands: a quick case study
The leopard cannot change its spots
In other words, basic characteristics cannot be altered.
Oh, yes they can…
The spots on these ‘leopards’ were changed to fingerprints as part of brand re-positioning for clients demonstrating biometric-based access control solutions at Europe’s biggest corporate security show in 2006.
This was just part of a campaign to influence market perceptions [...]
Market reflections: managing B2B brand perceptions
What are ‘market reflections’ and why do they matter?
Think of the brand as a reflection of your company in a mirror. You hold the brand up to this mirror and it reflects everything the company represents in the market. You don’t see the brand staring back at you, you see what the market sees.
When an end-user [...]
Creativity in B2B marketing. Are you serious?
Well, actually, yes, we are.
Imagination, inventiveness and originality. Add the concept of ‘vision’ and you are on the path towards innovation – creating new, improved ways of doing things.
This spirit of innovation is generally hailed as a ‘good thing’ in the development of products and services. It certainly doesn’t seem to get actively frowned upon – so [...]
The Long Hello: building brand-relationships in B2B
People come and go. Brands endure.
One reason why marketing doesn’t always pull its weight in B2B is that there is often such a strong emphasis on relationships with customers. Developing and sustaining these relationships can shift attention from managing the brand’s relationship with the overall market. And this can undermine the potential to strengthen sales, margins and [...]
Outstanding B2B marketing: Wunderman for Barloworld Logistics
Who says B2B is boring? Not Wunderman…
Branding: the heart of B2B marketing
Creating a market-identity
A lot less has been written about the importance of brands in B2B as opposed to B2C, and yet the authors quoted in the previous post, ‘Brands build business’ suggest that brands may be more important in B2B than they are in B2C.
My experience is that brands are more important in B2B because [...]
