Archive for the ‘B2B marketing’ Category

Five Sites to Watch in 2010 – Pt. 2 – CDW

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

CDW - Online Commerce Machine!

What caught my eye about CDW is that it is stretching the Amazon/B2C model to suit higher-end products not normally associated with retail sale—including a surprisingly large stock of Juniper Network products. CDW is a revenue-generating machine, and it has been extremely smart about integrating social media into the browsing experiences, including a prominent Twitter feed on the home page and a great “Click-to-chat” feature in the banner. 

One of the primary motivators for subscribing to corporate social feeds is “to find deals,” so this hits the sweet spot. In the coming year, it will be interesting to see whether CDW really takes advantage of its Twitter feed and updates it more frequently to promote loyalty. I personally would like to see the company offer methods to share on individual product pages.

Have you seen other successful B2B online commerce models? What are your favorite/least favorite features on CDW?

Tags: , ,
Posted in B2B marketing | 1 Comment »

I’m back to offer a deeper level of insight about trends and topics in digital strategy.

Monday, July 27th, 2009

Welcome to the brand-new iteration of my social media blog! To those of you who are familiar with my last blog: thank you for hanging in there. I promise it will be worth the wait. To catch the rest of you up a little, my blog has always been a place to investigate and discuss trends and topics in social media.

But whereas my earlier focus had been linking to examples and points of interest, I’ve shifted gears and will be offering a deeper conversation about the most pressing concerns of digital marketing and strategy including corporate websites, Facebook, Twitter, rich media, social bookmarking, widgets, mobile applications and more.

This, and the redesign of the blog itself, is the reason for my absence. In the meantime, of course, I’ve been hard at work investigating some exciting ideas. Beginning this week with a post entitled “Seven steps for building a thriving corporate Facebook community,” I’ll be updating this blog regularly, and my hope is that it will become a place to engage with your peers and a resource for those interested in harnessing the power of social media in all its forms.

So keep reading, and as you’ll hear me say time and again throughout my updates: participate, participate, participate!

Tags: ,
Posted in B2B marketing | No Comments »

B2B Brand Building in a Digital World – Pt.1

Friday, November 7th, 2008

Not so long ago, marketing professionals got the message out through a variety of mediums including direct mail, events, print ads, press releases, radio, television, telemarketing, bill boards, and a bit of online afterthought.

Each approach still has its place in the B2B marketing mix, but an online, techno-driven strategy and vision is now absolutely vital to global brand-building.

These new online outlets have the ability to change public opinion rapidly. So how can a B2B company define, and engage, in the world of social media?

Although the social media universe is constantly evolving, post by post by post by post by post by post (okay, you get it!), the B2B categories I’ve used to guide my online and social media approach include:

Online forums & blogs
Content and reputation aggregators
Social media networks
Search – natural and paid
Rich media

With a well-designed and functional B2B website (I know, I’m making assumptions here), understanding these five areas and implementing a “focused few” to begin with will make an immediate impact on your business.

Tip #1 — Link Often! – It’s good to connect and hear from others around the world …
Partners – IBM – A Smarter World is Resourceful … Love it!
Industry Experts – Webguild – Top 10 Social Media Lessons
Customers – SingTel – MioTV – Extremely cool!
Colleagues – J-Net Tawnee AKA Social Media Socialist
Company – Juniper Networks, J-Net Community
Gallery – Shock, Adobe showcases extraordinary work

Posted in B2B marketing, Social Media, blogs, forums, online strategy | No Comments »