Editor’s Note: Seasonal Shifts
SPRING IS A TIME OF CHANGE. If you’re a parent, that means getting ready for the leap from the school year schedule to camp, swimming lessons and other happy summer chaos. If you’re a homeowner, that means packing away the snow shovels and again mowing the lawn.
And if you’re a marketer, well, change is just business as usual, isn’t it?
The big shift I’ve noticed of late is that for marketers today, campaigns take a village — all roads seem to lead to community. At two recent conferences I attended — one on business-to-business and the other a regional direct marketing club annual get-together — every session seemed to wind up on the topic of how to engage customers in a social setting.
With both external and internal walls coming down, companies talk more across business lines, and customers are talking to each other. That means that today, a business often isn’t the best source of information about itself. For example, said author and Harvard researcher David Weinberger at the MarketingProfs B-to-B Forum, if a consumer wants to know how a Mini Cooper fares in Boston during a harsh winter, he doesn’t go to the manufacturer. He goes to Mini Cooper owners to hear their real life experiences — in real time.
Information today is fluid and transparent, Weinberger said, and companies engaged in social media must be ready to embrace the entire spectrum of how consumers are talking to each other and about businesses.
Of course, the rub is turning all that socializing into a conduit for sales. In this issue, we’ve got several case study examples of marketers doing just that, such as how Intuit got TurboTax users to share their reviews via Facebook, and how authors are using social media to get the word out about new tomes, beyond book tours.
Chief Business Marketer
Here at Chief Marketer we’re also recognizing another shift: To stay competitive, B-to-B marketers are getting more and more creative as they experiment with new media and technology to find the best ways to get — and retain — customers.
This month, we’re proud to announce the launch of Chief Business Marketer, a new monthly e-newsletter offering tips, trends and how-to advice B-to-B marketers can apply to their own enterprises. Each issue, editor Dan O’Shea will talk to experts in the field who will share case studies, the latest research and advice on how to get a better ROI from your budget dollars. Check it out at http://www.chiefbusinessmarketer.com. And we’re social too — visit the new CBM blog at http://bigfatmarketingblog.com/category/business-marketer/.
