When I was a lowly college freshman sitting in my Marketing 101 class, I never thought I would find myself waxing poetic about sprinkler head differences, LED lighting or custom-blended fertilizers years later.

That being said, working in B2B marketing, and specifically green industry marketing, has been the most fun challenge I’ve ever had. In B2B marketing, you have to reach decision-makers in many ways to make the most impact. Because B2B purchasing decisions typically come down to reaching the right decision-makers with the right message at the right time, communicating using multiple channels is a must.

This is especially important because the way business people access information continues to change and evolve. Therefore, you must think smarter about how to apply traditional tactics with cutting-edge marketing communications vehicles—sometimes simultaneously.

Case in point – let me introduce you to the Horizon Distributors Landscape Maintenance Guide…

The Horizon Maintenance Guide

Horizon tasked Canyon with creating this printed piece because they needed to find a way to give their customers – Landscape Contractors – a way to quickly reference and troubleshoot a slew of issues they might find in the field while on the job. Having this quick reference guide allows their customers to solve problems quicker, which saves time and makes them more profitable while keeping their projects on-budget.

And because Horizon Distributors wanted to deliver this same information in many different ways to keep up with technological innovations, the Landscape Maintenance Guide smartphone app was born.

Canyon worked closely with Horizon to adapt this piece into one that could be viewed on a variety of mobile devices because their persona research determined their typical customers always carry one on the job site. So now, this valuable information that will allow Horizon customers and prospects to reference information and troubleshoot issues in the field, right from their smartphone!

You would think that taking a print piece and converting it to an app would be a simple process. Not so.

The App shown on iPad and iPhone

In fact, for as much time we spent creating the app, we spent equal time strategically troubleshooting the challenges that arose by taking a print piece and making it work as a smartphone application.

When working to create an app you have to:

1. Make sure it’s user-friendly;
2. Valuable to the audience; and
   
3. Accessible from a variety of different mobile devices (including iPhones, Android devices, Blackberries and various tablet formats).

In the end, the app turned out to be a homerun for our client. Their customers and prospects who download the app will now have access to specific information that will help them do their jobs better while in the field. In addition, we built in the capability to make enhancements and updates on the fly to encourage users to keep checking back for new content and access the mobile app again and again.

Have you contemplated building a smartphone app for your B2B organization? What other mobile marketing strategies have you used to get the word out about your business? Do you look at mobile as a growing part of your marketing mix?

To me one of the best parts of life is shared experience. You’re personal world is enriched by the activities you choose to take part in with friends and family. There is no reason that this should end when you get to work.

So many of our awake hours are spent at work, you should expect that time to be just as gratifying. This need can be satisfied in a number of ways – through your company’s culture, your colleagues or with professional development opportunities that keep you on the leading edge of your discipline.

If there is one thing that has proven true with my career in business-to-business marketing, it’s that there is always going to be someone who knows more, has had further depth of experience or possesses more expertise than I do in the work I take on every day. Having come to terms with this, I find that my most satisfying days at work are when I open up my mind, eyes and ears to those individuals who have paved a clear path to marketing success before me.

It is for that reason that I choose to actively participate in the Business Marketing Association. Every month, I have the pleasure of hearing about marketing best practices and emerging trends directly from the people who set them. I get to share those experiences with others who, like me, see marketing communications as a challenging and rewarding part of business.

There is an upcoming opportunity through the Phoenix Chapter of the BMA and the Arizona Technology Council to exercise your marketing muscle at the annual Marketing Technology Summit. The event happens just once a year and in its third year continues to emphasize the ever-increasing dependence of marketing on new technology tools and applications.

The 2011 Marketing Technology Summit promises a fascinating afternoon of speakers and networking, focusing on the latest and greatest techniques and approaches in B2B Marketing.

Check out the events line up of speakers and topics:

Keynote Speech: “Lessons from the Field”

• John Kennedy, IBM

Panel Discussion: “Trends in Marketing Automation: Your Secret Weapon in 2011 and Beyond”

• Brian Kardon, Eloqua
• Greg Head, Infusionsoft

Panel Discussion: “Digital and Mobile Marketing Trends for 2011: Perspective from Top B2B Marketers”

• Laura Ramos, Xerox
• Bob Rinerle, GE Healthcare
• CK Kerley, CKB2B

Visit the 2011 Marketing Technology Summit website to learn more about the speakers and topics. I encourage you to attend this educational event – it’s a great opportunity to refresh your marketing skillset and apply worthwhile ideas to your business. I hope to see you there!

About three weeks ago, I was on vacation at the beautiful Del Mar beach in San Diego, California. Within five minutes of stepping into the ocean for the first time in years, I got stung by a stingray. If you have ever been stung by a stingray, it is an experience you won’t forget.

The sharp spine that contains venom-producing glands delivers a severe sting, and luckily I was only stung on my ankle. However, the sting has consumed my life in such a way that it’s had me thinking about a lot of things, including how this whole experience relates to B2B marketing.

As soon as the stingray stung my ankle, that fish immediately got my attention. I was in agonizing pain for a good 30 minutes where all I could think about was the pain. While I soaked my foot in hot water for several hours to help ease the pain, all I could think about was the stingray and how this all happened.

But where’s the B2B connection?

In B2B marketing, the importance of an effective direct sales force through distribution channels is critical. The type of sales forces can vary tremendously so it’s important that you deliver a dramatic yet effective marcomm impact (or sting) that will both get your prospect’s customer’s attention immediately and continue to stay in their mind (or in my case, foot). Your first customer touch point is your sting, so to speak.

A week after I got stung, my ankle turned black and blue, and I ended up in the emergency room. Turns out, I got an internal bacterial infection from the stingray and had to get treatment right away to avoid surgery.  Just when I thought the stingray incident was behind me, that fish got my attention again!

In today’s overloaded B2B marketing environment, getting the attention of decision markers and influencers is a challenge, which is why B2B marketers need to make sure they are using the correct B2B communication tools to keep the customer engaged in the product and/or service. One touch isn’t enough, you need to plan for that second, and third, and fourth touch throughout the sales cycle. Just like the stingray got my attention again, you need to keep getting your customer’s attention with a variety of strategic B2B marcomm tools.

My stingray damage.

As of today, my ankle is still a bit swollen and the wound is purple due to all the internal bleeding, but I am well on my way to recovery. I am never going to forget this experience and I’m sure it will be a story that I’ll tell my grandchildren someday.

In other words, when you’re trying to think of new ways to capture the attention of a prospect’s crowded day, develop a message (and a delivery system) that will stick in the back of the customer’s mind forever.

It is stingray season, so make sure to do the “stingray shuffle” in the ocean to let them know you’re coming. Unfortunately, I had to learn this the hard way.

Have you stung your B2B customers today?

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Did you know that Sunday, August 7th was Friendship Day? This is a holiday that was literally invented in 1919 by a greeting card company to sell cards (ahem…Joyce Hall of Hallmark).

Little did Joyce know that almost a century later the concept of “friendships” would be virtually re-defined. With the evolution of social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) your friendships and B2B engagements take on a whole new meaning. Who would have ever imagined that you’d be friends with, fans of, or “like” a business?

This concept is becoming more and more critical in the B2B space. In fact, a recent study showed that people’s social opinions can influence business decisions. Plus in a recent B@B Magazine webinar I attended, the speaker, Rishi Dave from Dell, cited that B2B social communities are bigger than B2C communities. And B2B social communities actually drive leads, pipeline and thought leadership when implemented correctly and are embraced by the whole company.

News flash —some of your biggest social influencers are actually your company’s own employees. They can help work every step of the sales process and can help make B2B social communities successful, especially when an effective internal training model is adopted.

This got me thinking that the idea of a single Friendship Day is seriously antiquated — in today’s day and age, Friendship Day is everyday and everyone is an influencer.

Who are your favorite B2B “friends”?