This is a particularly strong lesson for B2B marketers because business buyers are also using their consumer buying practices on the job. They depend on the Internet to seek out vendors, research technology, and learn who best understands their business problems and can articulate a clear vision.

B2B online communities are becoming an important influencing factor in helping to make purchasing decisions because buyers trust the relationships they have built with their peers more than they do the heavy-handed sales person.

Companies that understand these trends know that their prospects will come armed with information about the marketplace and what options are out there. Just like the car buyer, what business buyers need most is help sorting out the facts from the fluff and deciding what is the best solution for their circumstances. They also need the services to help with all of the planning, installation, conversion, and training steps that have to be done as part of the purchase.

So the smart vendors have moved beyond the sales-oriented approach of pursuing the hot prospects and tossing the cold ones back into the water. Whether you call it engagement marketing or relationship marketing, it is a systematic approach to keeping prospects engaged with content and consultation. A more adventerous vendor might even establish its own online community to encourage customers and prospects to share information - even if it’s about competitors.

-Mike

Two examples of contrived linkages:

A printer manufacturer shouldn’t try to artificially restrict the paper its printers can use. If there’s a good reason for special paper (for example, in high quality graphic arts applications), then fine. Or if the printer manufacturer wants to offer “guaranteed to work well” paper as an optional accessory item, that’s fine too. But contrived restrictions on what should be plain old commodity paper are a no-no.

Telephone service providers subsidize the price of cell phones as a promotional incentive for new subscribers. Most providers require a minimum service contract in exchange for the reduced price and then lock the phone to their own network. This is fair up to a point. But when the contract period expires, the customer has presumably paid back the subsidy in usage fees and should have free use of the phone — even to change providers, if desired. A provider that continues to keep the phone locked invites customer backlash and actually increases the likelihood that the customer will switch!

In fact, if I were asked to market the product in the example, where would I go to identify the customer stakeholder roles? And the most likely concerns, interests and objections raised by those stakeholders? To my most experienced and successful salespersons, of course. They’re out there every day observing the very customers I want to reach with marketing messages.

Think of it this way: An experienced, successful salesperson can succeed even with mediocre marketing support. It’s not easy, but they can do it. Good marketing support can make their job easier by shortening their learning curve, and it can make less experienced salespeople successful as well because it provides “successful selling” technique templates.

I didn’t want to rant on and on at Patent Hawk’s site. But quite frankly, I think this is a time for patent practitioners to object vociferously –and yes through blogs– about the unsupportable positions that the judges and the Patent Office are taking. When government does wrong, it is the duty of the citizenry to seek redress by way of petition and free speech.

Filing law suits and fighting the USPTO during prosecution is not “free” speech because some poor client is paying for my or some other lawyer’s billable hour rate and most of them simply can’t afford to be the trailblazing pioneer who takes on the powers to be (TPTB) for that price.

We are not in one of those periods where “Things are confusing [and] Decisions by examiners and courts are not always consistent.”

We are in one of those periods where for the last 8 to 16 years, the incumbent administrations (Clinton and Bush Jr.) have installed anti-inventor, pro-big-business bureaucrats into every nook and cranny of the courts and the agencies. The anti-inventor decision making of the courts and the USPTO is very consistent and very unfair. That’s what I’m complaining about. Inventors play by the rules and then TPTB change the rules midstream. Stop blaming the inventors and start pointing the finger of blame at inept judges and corrupt PTO bureaucrats. As for “whatever is coming next”, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition and yet it comes (unless we do everything in our powers to stop it). Cheers.

God bless and good luck.

If any of your readers are interested, they can sign up for our other free upcoming Internet marketing webinars here:
http://www.hubspot.com/marketing-webinars

Thanks!

Mike Volpe
VP Marketing
HubSpot

I like it — it is concise and accurate. Nice web site.

Good luck,

David

So far, the winner for most helpful suggestion comes from Mike Selissen of Case Mountain Communications (www.casemountain.com). He suggested, “Bringing ideas to market.” With a couple of minor tweaks, I’ve decided on the tagline, “Taking your ideas to market.”

“Taking” because I need to speak from my clients’ point of view.

“Your ideas” (not just “ideas”) to emphasize that I am a consultancy with a fiduciary responsibility to make my clients’ ideas succeed.

What do you think? Does this work? Does it crystallize what I do?