With the ghost of a smile on his face

I simply wanted to take the opportunity of this first blog post in order to apply concepts of value-based marketing in a business-to-business (B2B) environment. Although a number of the underlying tactics are similar regardless of weather the target audience is an individual or a business, the preferred means of diffusing information in a B2B environment is quite different. Information is more commonly destined for a small number of strategically important individuals as opposed to a widespread audience. Also targeted individuals are generally much more informed about their respective industries and product offerings that exist within them; in comes the increasingly important medium of choice for many firms (notably tech firms) in B2B environments: whitepapers and thought leadership marketing.



source: The Economist Intelligence Unit B2B marketing survey 2008

Strategies for the strategic use of thought leadership are numerous. Increasingly mere publication of articles, blogs posts, podcasts, etc. are not enough to guarantee returns on this form of investment. I synthesized a basic approach below.

The development of a strategy to engage and maintain dialogue with interested parties is also important. A traditional means of contact is simply having a sales agent follow up with interested parties; however, increasingly this is being viewed as ineffective. It is important to maintain dialogue so that when a firm is in a position to purchase services or product open channels of communication exist. Also allowing for direct contact with a company employee outside of the sales department may create an avenue to satiate increasing interest without being subject to sales pressure.



In brief by thinking of TLM in terms of value marketing and not being overly focused on one-time sales firms may create a community of interest and an intellectual discussion, which, to an extent, they control. Thus setting their company up to be an option of choice when interest transitions to purchase.

References

http://www.thoughtleadershipstrategy.net/2010/07/five-steps-to-excellence-for-thought-leadership-marketing/

http://www.wdfm.com/thought-leadership.php

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1292013