DaveStevensNow

Read my interview with LinkedIn about how the coronavirus crisis is changing the way businesses do marketing. Read the article here:- https://business.linkedin.com/en-uk/marketing-solutions/blog/posts/B2B-Marketing/2020/Reinventing-B2B-Marketing-for-unprecedented-times-2020

Some good examples of B2B Marketing: Dropbox for Business

In a world in which Marketing Week can publish its ten nominations for Brand of the Year and be content that not one of them is B2B, it can feel pretty lonely and unloved in the business marketing profession. So it’s time to give a shout out for some of the great work that B2B marketers are doing.

I thought I’d share a few examples and why I like them over the next few posts. 

Next…

Some good examples of B2B Marketing: Earth-i

In a world in which Marketing Week can publish its ten nominations for Brand of the Year and be content that not one of them is B2B, it can feel pretty lonely and unloved in the business marketing profession. So it’s time to give a shout out for some of the great work that B2B marketers are doing.

I thought I’d share a few examples and why I like them over the next few posts. 

Next…

Some good examples of B2B Marketing: Acciona

In a world in which Marketing Week can publish its ten nominations for Brand of the Year and be content that not one of them is B2B, it can feel pretty lonely and unloved in the business marketing profession. So it’s time to give a shout out for some of the great work that B2B marketers are doing.

I thought I’d share a few examples and why I like them over the next few posts. 

Next…

Some good examples of B2B Marketing: Xero

In a world in which Marketing Week can publish its ten nominations for Brand of the Year and be content that not one of them is B2B, it can feel pretty lonely and unloved in the business marketing profession. So it’s time to give a shout out for some of the great work that B2B marketers are doing.

I thought I’d share a few examples and why I like them over the next few posts. 

Next up:…

Some good examples of B2B Marketing: Airtable

In a world in which Marketing Week can publish its ten nominations for Brand of the Year and be content that not one of them is B2B, it can feel pretty lonely and unloved in the business marketing profession. So it’s time to give a shout out for some of the great work that B2B marketers are doing.

I thought I’d share a few examples and why I like them over the next few posts. 

Next up:…

Some good examples of B2B Marketing: 3i

In a world in which Marketing Week can publish its ten nominations for Brand of the Year and be content that not one of them is B2B, it can feel pretty lonely and unloved in the business marketing profession. So it’s time to give a shout out for some of the great work that B2B marketers are doing.

I thought I’d share a few examples and why I like them over the next few posts.

First up:…

Get ready for GDPR 2!

Unlike many marketing people I’ve spoken to, I’ve been a long-time fan of the GDPR rules that came into force last year. The rules brought with them larger fines which encouraged many firms I know to pay attention to and take seriously data protection rules for the first time. As a result many businesses came out of 2018 with smaller databases but much better customer experiences than they went…

Trends in Technology Use for B2B Marketers

Mary Meeker’s annual technology report is now available online at https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/6/11/18651010/mary-meeker-internet-trends-report-slides-2019. As ever, it’s great value – but it’s a long read at 333 slides and you won’t be surprised to see that again all of the news reports about Meeker talk about its consequences for B2C marketing. So what should B2B marketers note this year?

How to market to your CFO

The entrance to the British Library’s latest exhibition on writing is marked by three artefacts: an Egyptian figurine, a label for an Egyptian mummy, and a Mesopotamian clay object. All dates from 2000 years ago or more. And together the items articulate the three reasons why humans developed writing: communicating, naming things, and accounting. Yes, marketing and finance have long been…

The B2B Marketing Magpie

In La Gazza Ladra, an 1817 opera by Gioachino Rossini, servant Ninetta is taken to the scaffold for the theft of silver-ware, a theft really perpetrated by a magpie attracted to something shiny and new.

There’s a magpie gene in marketers too. And while the scaffold is perhaps a bit too drastic a reaction to such behaviour, we need to think about ways of keeping our gene in check.

Marketers…

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” George Bernard Shaw

Great marketing is about understanding your audience’s needs and preparing the interactions that will respond to them. Here are four things for B2B marketers to think about in preparing those interactions.

First, build pauses into their customer messaging to allow their audience to reflect. That’s pauses between key parts of your messaging, between your messages, and during your messages.…

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail…

A good B2B Marketer goes beyond the brochure, the website, the direct mail and into every interaction that their business has with a customer. Every interaction is important because every interaction has the potential to be a moment of truth that could acquire, retain, or lose a customer. So B2B marketers need to ensure that their businesses are prepared.

Preparation is about ensuring your…

Why B2B Marketing makes me feel like Indiana Jones

Look I’m clearly no Harrison Ford. I haven’t uncovered any implausibly powerful religious artefacts recently, fought off any Nazis, or raced through any abandoned mine shafts. But occasionally – when things are going well – the B2B Marketing profession makes me feel just like Indiana Jones.

That’s because B2B marketers are in the business of digging to uncover the story of the business or…

What’s in a name?

I sometimes find myself helping businesses that use an abundance of naming conventions for their companies, products, and services. Where the target market for all these names is the same, using a large number of names in your marketing simply confuses your customers. Simplification rules. Always.

It’s always worth thinking about differential advantage where your target market is the same.…

Even my blog is asking me for my goals for the year…

It’s the time of year when businesses like to ask for your objectives for the year. How they do this varies from organisation to organisation. Sometimes it’s a tick-box exercise run by the HR team. Sometimes there’s a protracted exercise to ensure that objectives cascade down or up the business hierarchy so that your goals are a sub-set of your line manager’s and your team take a sub-set of…

How I became a Marketer at the age of ten

My story as a Marketer started when I was ten years old.

When I was ten, I got an illness which ate away at my hip sockets and left me in a wheelchair for five years. I was kicked out of my first school because they could not handle having a disabled person as a student. These were less enlightened times. But my parents were brilliant and found me a replacement school that was up to taking on…