What will 2009 be remembered for in the world of B2B marketing?

From our point of view, it was the year that B2B went beyond business as usual. What do we mean? Maybe this is best illustrated by a brief track back through the Base One Beyond blog and flagging up the most read posts. After all, we can think what we like but the acid test is what attracts the most readers. If the people don't get it, it's not working.

One of 2009's most used words was 'social media' and it dawned on many B2B marketers in 2009 that this was something to take notice of. This then spawned the term 'Buyersphere', which we have been quoting ever since we first blogged about it in March.

The following month saw a great example of how social media makes people tell the truth. Or rather how it exposes people when they don't, with the story of Damian McBride and his smear emails.

But the realisation of how B2B marketers needed to change what they were doing - and change how they were thinking - came to the fore during the summer. Our take on these developments was summarised by an interesting chance encounter with a traditional magazine editor (one of a dying breed in 2009), and by the fascinating debate over who exactly should be talking for your brand out there in the Brave New World of social media.

Whose job is it anyway? Your PR dept? Your marketing guys? Your CEO? How about - just possibly - it might be everyone's job. One of the realisations of 200 was that, as marketers, our job is perhaps not so much to do it as to enable it.

But there was also a wonderful feeling of goodwill around in 2009 - which is odd considering the economic climate. The awareness that peer-to-peer information sharing was increasing - the fact that buyers were talking to buyers - convinced many a gnarly old marketer that we could no longer talk at our customers. It was all about sharing and, well, being nice. Etiquette was big news in 2009 as it became clear that brands needed to give something of value if they were to receive the valuable attention of their target audience. A popular metaphor was that we were all invited to the world's biggest cocktail party - and we had to behave accordingly.  

But where was the proof that all of this was working? As proponents of the 'new way of working' we were keen to flag up a good success story when we saw it, and May showed us why it was more important than ever to listen to customers!

The following months, the discussions continued, with pieces on the problems with data capture, the true meaning of viral marketing and how to spot spammers. (I've also learned not to include the word 'spammer' in a blog post - search engines don't like it...)

As if to prove that going beyond business as usual was not limited to the business of social media, we then introduced a little culture into proceedings with B2Beat poetry - an anthology of inspiring verse from our very own poet laureate, Noel Ponthieux.  This obviously struck a chord with marketers around the world as the modest print run that we produced quickly sold out.

We chose scandal for our next topic, with the outrageous story of how Pepsi endorsed casual sexism in its social media marketing. This was followed by Jamie-Lee Wallace's excellent lesson in selectivity, before we then segued effortlessly into a comparison of Star Trek and B2B marketing. Trust me, the link is highly logical.

So in summary, it has been a year to remember for B2B marketing, and one for which we were proud to provide a commentary here on the Base One Beyond blog.

As an aside, it was also the year when someone pointed out that the words 'gold' and 'blog' are mirror images of each other. This makes 'blog gold' at the same time a palindrome, an excuse for a logo (see below) and a great name for the award we give to our best blogs.



And for 2009, I can think of no one who has boldly gone further than Ms Ponthieux with her Star Trek piece.

Thank you all for reading - see you next year.

OK, picture the scene. You are a male in your mid-20s. You're in a bar packed with beautiful women, and you have one thing on your mind. How do you increase your chances of 'success'? That's right: turn to family brand Pepsi, who have sanctioned an incredible piece of social media marketing, built around an iPhone app.

The application - available now free from an AppStore near you - offers advice on how to 'score' by way of promoting its spin-off beverage, Amp. "Amp up before you score" is the line behind this amazingly insensitive marketing idea.

It's a classic conversation we've all witnessed at some point:

SEO Expert: Here's the list of keywords you need to focus on when writing the copy for the web site.

Copywriter: What do you mean? These don't fit at all with the way the brand communicates.

SEO Expert: Well in that case, people searching for the brand and its products just won't find them!

SO THERE! That told them...

Well, maybe, but there's a reason for the way a brand communicates, and its the result of weeks, months, even years of research and acquired knowledge. An 'upstart' like search can't just come and shoot all of this down with one pesky list of keywords...

Maybe not, but surely the way people search for your products is relevant to the way you should present and sell them? What it you're selling courgettes, but your customers are searching for zucchini? Or maybe they ARE searching for courgettes, but those with the largest potential orders are specifically searching for 'soft-skinned courgettes', when you're busy selling them as 'green and white courgettes' because this was the key message you decided on when you last looked at the way you communicate. In this case, they are less likely to find you, and you are potentially missing an important sales opportunity.

Search may be a relative newcomer in the marketing timeline, but it can provide you with vital information on the way customers perceive brands, as can the shiny new arrival, Social Media.  From a B2B perspective especially, they both represent the voice of the Buyersphere - what people are actually saying and thinking rather than what you believe they are saying and thinking. Whilst they are not the 'be all and end all' as some fans will have you believe, any wise marketer should add them to their toolbox and use them whenever possible.

And as for the branding question? If you have an established brand and a well-tried approach to your communication, of course you shouldn't rip up the rule book to accommodate keywords. To quote a favourite search mantra: build for the users and not for the search engines - in other words, take the keywords into account, but make sure that they fit the copy and not vice versa. If, however, you are at the start of a branding or a re-branding process, Search and Social media are invaluable, powerful and free research tools that can provide you with crucial feedback on how the Buyersphere searches for and talks about your brand, and I would recommend combining them in every case with the more established tools - surveys, round-tables, focus groups, etc.

So, in a way, the keywords do come first, but not in importance, just in order.

Yes - your B2B brand can be stronger, fitter and altogether more gorgeous. And it takes just a few minutes. Allow me to explain and invite you all to join in an experiment.

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post that postulated the three fundamental questions that a B2B company needed to answer if it was to succeed in social media.

I chatted to a few people about this afterwards and we thought that distilling complex issues down to a few basic questions was incredibly liberating. Forget the detail, just look at the topline. So why not apply the same principle to the issue of assessing your brand strength?

I believe there are just ten questions you need to ask in order to get a top-level idea of how strong your brand is (or your client's brand). Naturally, I'm ignoring the details here - but then that's where the devil is - so this is not the basis for a five-year branding strategy. But just ten questions should give you a revealing snapshot of your brand fitness, and highlight the areas you need to work on - thus giving you an opportunity to make your brand stronger.

But what are the ten key questions? And how can you do this in 3 minutes?

Is your marketing outside-in? Or inside-out? Which is better and why should B2B marketers care?
 
I was wondering this as I took my seat yesterday at an event yesterday entitled "Outside-in v inside-out: the great debate" hosted by Experian and ABBA (the Association of Business-to-Business Agencies, not the Swedish power-pop combo).

The answer is that we should definitely care - and we should understand the merits of the different approaches. The speakers for and against the motion put forward some excellent arguments, which I have tried to summarise below (whilst adding a little editorial opinion while I'm at it, of course). Read the following descriptions and work out for yourself whether inside-out or outside-in works for you.

Apparently, 90% of Twitter traffic is created by just 10% of users.

This fact, according to the widely quoted recent report by Harvard Business School, "implies that Twitter resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network". The sub-text here is clear: Twitter is mainly spam.

But that's a fairly one-dimensional view and, as B2B marketers, we shouldn't leap to conclusions. We're in danger of ignoring the fact that Twitter can be many things to many people, and can therefore fill a number of different roles for your brand. If you are thinking of using Twitter - or social media in general - in your marketing, you need to know how it can serve you.

Social media marketing is new and exciting.

Direct mail is outdated and dull.

An easy conclusion to reach these days, but wrong. Not only are they both effective in their own ways, but put the two together and you get something fantastic - and you won't see a better example than the DM campaign above and the reaction it gained when it went out last week...

You don't often hear phrases like "305% ROI" attached to discussions about social media, so I was delighted to read, via Kipp Bodnar, about Forrester's recent research into "live chat" as a sales tool. Now, live chat is arguably a small subset of the wider social media sphere, but when it attracts serious figures from a serious researcher like Forrester, companies are going to sit up and take notice (if they haven't already). Basically, the point of the research was to show that having a "live" person manning the chatroom, fielding enquiries from prospects, is a sound investment for 'big-ticket' B2B sales.

An astonishing email exchange yesterday confirmed to me that many editors are running scared at the prospect of user-generated content making their role redundant.

I'll share the contents of the email with you. It is an email I received when I simply suggested to the editor of a well-known marketing publication that it might be useful to be able to comment on his editorial, a link to which had come to me in the magazine's weekly summary.

John,
We are a magazine, not a blog. I don't share your view that the point is to get a conversation going - what outcome do you expect from that? A change in my opinion? A shift in coverage? That way I'd stop being an editor and would end up just acting like a traffic warden.

What outcome would I expect? Well, how about a more complete, balanced and therefore useful information resource? And, in turn, more satisfied readers? It doesn't surprise me that editors are feeling defensive. Don't get me wrong: the originator of this email knows his industry and is far better placed than most others (including me) to make a judgment on it. And I appreciate that an editorial is, traditionally, a one-way expression of opinion.

But is he so sure of himself that, in this age of user power, he should stand by his editorial position without regard for what his readers think? He doesn't have to change opinion, but he does need to give his readers the best chance of forming their own. With this attitude, no wonder subscription numbers are falling, magazines are going out of business, and the role of the editor is in jeopardy.

Or is it? The industry's more forward-thinking publishers are using the surge in user-generated comment and content to make their brand more valuable, not less. In an example where I am pleased to be able to name names, we see B2B Marketing Magazine going from a glossy print edition when it was first launched to a multi-media, interactive, news and opinion channel that is growing in popularity, not shrinking. Editor Joel Harrison tells me how delighted he is at being able to provide a platform for a wider range of voices. The magazine has gone well beyond the traditional magazine format, and is now complemented by a vibrant, two-way web portal, featuring blogs, comments, webcasts and the like. Joel's approach to information gathering, management and presentation has made it an invaluable resource for B2B marketers.

Editors like this are welcoming the new information channels. They are simultaneously creators and moderators of content that the readers want to read. They are not running scared, they are staying put - and chairing the debate.

This morning, in our little corner of south west London, it’s raining. But looking for an umbrella as I left the house, I was reminded of how effective a really good promotional item can be. When everyone’s talking about social media, the Buyersphere and the web generation, it’s heart-warming to know that the real, tangible side of marketing is still alive, well and that there are people going beyond the usual ‘giveaway’ fare we are all so used to.