Jude Fischer's blog

I just read a report that, according to the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR), trade show activity was up 3.8% in the 4th quarter of last year when compared with Q4 of 2010.  In fact, growth was seen in all four areas of CEIR’s Index: net square feet (+4.2%), number of exhibiting companies (+2.4%), attendance (+3.6%), and revenue (+5.1%).  Overall, the CEIR Index was up 2.7% for the whole of 2011.

If you’re like a lot of client-side B2B marketers, your firm has probably added a variety of in-house marketing capabilities over the past few years.  We’ve been seeing companies do it for a variety of reasons including, but not necessarily limited to, cost savings.  Advances in design software and other digital tools have made some of the things we all do more accessible to an in-house staff.  And yet, despite the growth of in-house departments, B2B marketers still indicate that generating a steady flow of relevant content and syndicating it to customers and prospects via in

A lot of people – including some of us at AMI – have been talking and writing about thought leadership lately.  What it is.  How to establish it.  What content is needed to demonstrate it.  Where that content should be placed.  And what role, if any, social media should play in developing it.

According to BtoB Magazine’s Emerging Trends in B-to-B Social Media Marketing Study published earlier this year, the second biggest hurdle in adopting social for B2B marketers is poorly defined social media metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs).  Of those surveyed, 57% reported this as an obstacle, and just 25% indicated they have ROI metrics in place.

Applying metrics to marketing activities is a top priority for most B2B marketers, but establishing meaningful measurements can be difficult.  There are a lot of things you can track: open rates, clicks, cost-per-click, leads, followers, fans, site traffic … but just because you can track something doesn’t mean you necessarily should.  The key is deciding what to measure.  Unfortunately, this is often a lot harder than you would think. 

Not all new products launches can be supported with aggressive marketing budgets.  In recent years, most B2B marketers have been struggling to maintain even the most basic marcom functions, let alone any sort of integrated product launch plan.  And even if your overall marketing budget is solid, there are times the product being launched simply doesn’t warrant its own budget line item.  Perhaps it is a me-too product that is only intended to fill a gap in your line (or exploit a gap

Solutions selling.  Bundling products and services to bring greater value to the customer and capture a larger piece of the total pie.  It seems to be the goal of every sales organization on the planet.  It drives the product development efforts of many companies, and the merger & acquisition activity of others.  And yet, I wonder if sometimes we aren’t losing the forest for the trees.  Do we become so intent on selling the big solution that we lose sight of the fact that customer might just need a product?

ProMat is next week, but there are still several things you can do before, during and after the show to maximize your show ROI.  Here are six easy ways to increase your booth traffic and generate more leads.

Have you seen them?  These funny-looking things that resemble a crossword puzzle on some sort of hallucinogenic?  They’re called QR (quick response) Codes and they are two-dimensional barcodes.  Originally developed by Toyota back in the ‘90s for parts inventory and logistical purposes, they are now being used as a marketing tool in the B2B world.  Their 2D format allows these quirky codes to store more information than conventional barcodes, which opens the door to a broad range of potential uses, particularly when targeting smart phone users.  

For the past month or so, there has been a very active (and at times rather heated) discussion within the LinkedIn B2B Technology Marketing Community regarding key trends as we enter 2011.  Seeing the group’s interest in the topic, the group moderator, Holger Schulze, decided to conduct a survey on the subject and has since posted the resu