When choices proliferate, branding ascends. The Internet has created a truly global marketplace. More national competitors and more international competition from Europe, India, China and Brazil are acting as a forcing function for the adoption of branding by B2B Manufacturers. When it comes to branding, the only way to see the world is through the […]
Scarcity and fear are perhaps the greatest motivators for change. Most manufacturers, like other organizations, change their behaviors drastically only when facing the prospects of recession. Every recession has motivated manufacturers to adopt new marketing tactics. Even though search engines have been in play for over a decade and have been adopted by fast moving […]
Manufacturers are adopting SEO in large numbers. Recall that SEO is the art and science of getting your website ranked on Google, Yahoo and Bing for the keywords that matter to you the most. Since it accounts for almost half of our business, we are in a good position to share the top 10 reasons […]
Once upon a time, marketing departments at manufacturers were sales driven organizations. They were run by people who rose through the ranks of sales and assumed the titles of VP for Sales & Marketing. They shied away from less familiar branding and marketing techniques that their B2C brethren lived for more than one hundred years. […]
A careful read of manufacturing and B2B stats paints an interesting picture of an underlying sea change. Let’s see if we can answer some basic questions. What goals are manufacturers trying to achieve with their marketing budgets? The chart below shows that manufacturers are beginning to embrace branding as a means to outcompete, outperform, and […]
Skepticism abounds amongst manufacturing marketers, yet the leaders are doing absolutely stunning things with their social media touch points. Great use and reuse of photographs, videos and engaging conversations. Here are a couple of my favorites: GE Pinterest page: GE Google+ page: GE Facebook page: GE YouTube page: GE Twitter page: John Deere Facebook page: […]
Once in a long while, I come across a book that I just can’t stop reading until I finish it. And then I have to read it again and again to savor it. For a guy who finishes a book every week, only a few books have had a magical impact on me. These include […]
Brand managers, take note. Researchers are finding out that insecticides introduced in the 1990’s are causing the decline of bee colonies two decades later. Similarly, the impact of poor branding may not be felt for a decade or two, but ultimately it will catch up. I see several colleges, companies and non-profits doing a reckless […]
In searching for the true essence of brands, we often journey, sometimes physically and at other times virtually, to mythical lands of their origin stories. Consider some recent places we have visited in our imagination: Xanten in Rhineland where St. Norbert was born, monasteries of Holy Cross in Southern France where Blessed Basil Anthony Moreau […]
James Turrell, the artist of light, recently said “In a lucid dream, you have a sharper sense of color and lucidity than with your eyes open. I’m interested in the point where imaginative seeing and outside seeing meet, where it becomes difficult to differentiate between seeing from the inside and seeing from the outside.” I […]