Marketing Sherpa’s B-to-B Demand Generation Summit - Summary

B2B or not B2B… if you are - then you must go to Marketing Sherpa’s B-to-B Demand Generation Summit (next one is Nov. 13/14 in San Fran – see http://www.sherpastore.com/Summits.html).   I was at the Boston event this week to learn, and also to meet key marketing decision-makers at Dow, Dupont, HP, IBM, TechTarget, Bearing Point, DoubleClick, etc.

This is a great event with insight from real marketers in the trenches telling you what worked for them. Ann Holland filled in like a champ with an impromptu international marketing presentation with tips like this: in your alphabetical drop down list of “what country are you from,” it is reeeeeally insulting to list United States first.

Here are Ann’s “5 Key Points” from the entire event (Thanks Tad Clark, Sherpa Editorial Director):

1. We heard the word “content” 100 million times. It's now the word in B2B. Not copywriting, not creative, not measurement, but the content… Journalism is king.

2. Personas. The average B2B marketer is building personas more than B2C, profiling everyone from pain points to pragmatists to their own CEOs.

3. Multitouch, drip irrigation. We need to stay in touch with people. When they're ready to buy we need to be in front of them. Should you spend all your money on a big splashy ad campaign or a little drip across a long period of time? Do the drip.

4. The days of the super big generic trade show are over. The trend is to do a niche show, private parties, road show, regional show. You’ll get more leads from those.

5. Measurement, measurement, measurement. At past shows it's been about open rates, click rates, drop-off rates. Now it's about measuring the results. Be less tactical and more goal based.

Way to B2B…!

David Cutler
Director of Business Development