4. Christopher S. Penn works for the email
marketing company, WhatCounts. He also cofounded
the PodCamp new media community
conference, and currently co-hosts the Marketing
Over Cof fee podcast. In 2012, Forbes
Magazine recognized him as one of the top 50
most influential people in social media and digital
marketing.
Your best insights for B2B innovation are
not going to come from marketing books,
webinars, or conferences. Find something to
study deeply that's an art, be it painting,
music, martial arts, dance, whatever.
Find a teacher who is a legitimate expert in
the art, study with them, learn it, master it,
and then pull the lessons you learn from it
into your own businesses and marketing.
There's an expression from my martial arts,
from my teacher, Mark Davis, that goes like
this - "on ko chi shin". That's Japanese for
study something old to learn something new.
The best part is that you need very little
encouragement or motivation to study
something you already love. All you need do
now is look for the lessons and move them
from one part of your life to another.
5. Rob Yoegel oversees all content marketing
initiatives for Monetate, driving sales, engagement,
retention, leads, and positive customer behavior.
Previously, he was vice president of e-media for
North American Publishing Company (NAPCO),
where he developed successful content, sales, and
marketing initiatives online for more than a
decade, as well as the editor and publisher
of PhillyTech Magazine.
Think of your entire organization as your
marketing department.
Listen to your customers. And remember
there’s truly a difference between hearing and
listening.
Make sure your prospects and customers
know there’s actually a person/people on the
other end of the content that you publish.
Don’t be afraid to take risks. It’s OK to
occasionally be first and fail.
Continue to learn from what others are
doing and network, network, network. !
6. Amber Naslund is a business strategist with a
strong focus on social, communication and
community initiatives. Her expertise spans
p r o f e s s i o n a l f u n d r a i s i n g , c o r p o r a t e
communications, marketing, professional services,
and social business strategy. Amber is the coauthor
of The NOW Revolution, and her blog has
been recognized for excellence in social media
and community related content. !
Be more innovative by realizing that
marketing is not an island, and shifting your
focus as a result.
Social business - the result of actively
adapting your organization to better
collaborate and communicate with your
peers, your customers, and your partners -
should be part of your vision even if you’re
miles away.
Once you understand how and where
marketing critically touches every part of
an organization and how it has the
potential to affect so many things -- for
better and worse -- you’ll find that your
perspective gets much broader and your
marketing will get much, much smarter and
more strategic.
7. Alan Belniak focuses on product lifecycle
management at PTC, a major Boston-based
software company. He works in strategic and
tactical fashions to find ways to use social media
channels to better interact with customers, and
to direct that feedback to marketing, R&D, sales,
and other appropriate groups.
Focus on three things: utility, share-ability
and remarkability.
Is what you are providing useful to me? Are
you breaking new news before others,
providing an interactive cost calculator, or
helping me compare large sets of complex
data quickly?
If it’s useful, I’ll want to spend time with it.
Once you’ve got me hooked, can I share it
easily? Embed share buttons right into the
thing itself.
Is it remarkable so others may comment on
it, either in your feed or via email afterward,
or even in the hallway? If you can achieve
varying levels of these, then you’re innovating.
8. C.C Chapman is a writer, photographer, and
explorer. His new book Amazing Things Will
Happen hits shelves this winter and his first
book, C o n t e n t R u l e s—a u t h o r e d wi t h
MarketingProfs' Ann Handley—is a global best
seller. C.C. is a passionate advocate for making
the world a better place through creativity. He is
the host of Passion Hit TV and Managing the Gray.
Do something unexpected so that you stand
out from the rest. This doesn't mean you in
any way should create something that is
inappropriate, but look at what you and your
competitors have been creating and sharing
and then go in a different direction.
Brainstorm without rules so that all those
wild and crazy ideas come out and then start
thinking strategically about which one(s)
might be able to be used for something truly
unique.
Image
9. Roberta Rosenberg has more than 25 years of
experience in the direct response marketing field,
including B2B clients in publishing, high-tech,
scientific, financial, professional services, and
ecommerce. An expert on landing page copy and
design, she developed and wrote the popular
Copywriting Maven Landing Page Makeovers
series at Copyblogger.
B2B marketers tend to think that marketing
to businesses is somehow a dry, bloodless
exercise compared to B2C. They forget that
they're still marketing to real-live people who
happen to be purchasing for their companies
rather than themselves.
My advice? Borrow freely from our B2C
colleagues - deconstruct their campaigns to
find the message magic within - and find a
way to make it applicable and relevant to our
B2B promotions. Image
10. Kathleen Christoph is responsible for running
marketing automation as part of PerkinElmer's
lead generation efforts. Prior to PerkinElmer,
Kathleen held various roles at Fidelity
Investments, including email communications and
ownership of the company's marketing
automation platform.
Analyze, Analyze, Analyze
Marketing automation and web analytics tools
have a goldmine of information that can lead
you to an idea for the next great piece of B2B
content. Analyze the activities and target your
writing to current interest areas. Publish your
content and analyze again. Image
11. Mack Collier specializes in helping companies
better connect with their customers via social
media. He helps clients create connections with
customers and nurture relationships into bottom
line results. Plus, he's the force behind #BlogChat,
Twitter's largest organized chat.
I always remember that great Wayne Gretsky
quote about how he was a great hockey
player because he didn't skate after the puck,
he skated to where it was headed.
I think that's the heart of innovation, not to
build the road that we will use today, but to
understand where we want to go tomorrow,
and build a road to get us there. The heart of
innovation goes back to understanding your
customers so well that you can spot trends
and understand what they will want and need
next.
With social media marketing, focus on
understanding WHY the people are using the
tools. If you understand what value people
are deriving from each particular social media
tool, it makes it easier for you to spot what
the next 'big thing' will be.
12. Amanda works for Lattice Engines, a leader in
B2B sales intelligence software helping companies
achieve 6-14% sales productivity increases
through Intelligent Targeting, Contextual
Conversations, and Measurable Execution. She is
responsible for setting and managing the
company's content marketing strategy, including
producing and publishing engaging content.
Here’s how companies can think of new ideas
to excite, engage, and educate B2B buyers.
First, remember that the people you are selling
to are, in fact, people. They are consumers too,
so it isn't really necessary to treat them as an
entirely different species.
To be truly innovative, it is important to look
to many sources: consumer brands, TV,
commercials, and social media for inspiration. I
carry around a small notebook to jot down
ideas I see that provoke creative thinking.
Next, use that inspiration to think about how
the idea can apply to your business and how
you can rejigger it for your audience.
Lastly, look to colleagues for a new perspective.
Great ideas can come from outside of the
marketing department
13. With more than 20 years of experience in
senior leadership positions for technology
companies, Ellen Valentine has deep expertise in
launching new products, evaluating product and
market positions, designing go-to-market
strategies, and managing digital marketing
initiatives. She's currently focused on coaching and
mentoring Silverpop clients to adapt and thrive in
marketing's changing landscape. !
One of the best ways to get creative is to
steal shamelessly! Keep an ideas folder (both
electronic and hardcopy) of interesting things
that you see other companies using. Keep
snippets of event themes, ad titles, creative
approaches . Don’t s teal f rom your
competitors though, because surely you can
do better. Look at interesting things that B2C
companies are doing: messaging, creative,
tactics and themes. The smallest idea could
be expanded into an integrated marketing
plan for your company.
By maintaining this file over time, a single
concept clipped 6 months ago might be
incredibly useful in a current project.
Encourage your team to participate too.
Schedule time to review your clips. You never
know when you might be able to dust off
something saved and put it to immediate use.
14. Paul Gillin advises marketers and business
executives on strategies to optimize their use of
social media and online channels to reach buyers
more cost-effectively. In addition, he is a senior
research fellow at the Society for New
Communications Research. Paul has authored
three books on social media and content
marketing, including the award-winning The New
Influencers.
Create a theme that can be applied in
different ways to different people in your
organization to uncover interesting and
remarkable information.
For example, "Did you know...?" can the basis
for an ongoing series of blog posts and tweets