By Paul Myerscough 

Most trade event reviews I come across tend to sound like an apprentice recounting his first week at work. You know what I mean-lots of boyish enthusiasm and an inescapable desire to thrust his knowledge upon a poor, unsuspecting audience. But that wasn't the case at the BMA's Go and Grow event in London, which took place late last month. I came away with plenty of insight about the challenges facing B2B marketers and the dramatic changes in marketing communications.

B2B marketers continue to grapple with how to meld social media with their advertising and marketing campaigns. Integrating social channels into the marketing mix is arguably one of the biggest challenges facing B2B companies. In this book excerpt from "Advice from the Top: The Expert Guide to B2B Marketing," Tom Schippert, principal of Tom Schippert Communications and a member of BMA Colorado, enumerates several ways that B2B marketers can integrate social media into their overall marketing strategy, ranging from conducting research to sharing information.

By Kurt Shaver

Initially, social media was viewed as yet another medium for broadcasting information to an audience. Later, marketers realized that listening to customer conversations was even more powerful and, soon enough, customer service and product development departments began to use social media to listen and interact with their customers. Ironically, the department with the most "social" personalities has been one of the last to embrace social media and social networking: sales.

BMA Milwaukee Chapter Event: A Different Kind of Debate - Marketing vs. Sales

11/8/2012 | Milwaukee, WI

BMA St. Louis Chapter Event: How Xerox Uses Multimedia to Engage Business Buyers

11/8/2012 | Clayton, MO

BMA Southern California Chapter "B2B Social Media Part II plus Insights from IBM's Global CMO Study"

11/13/2012 | Los Angeles, CA

BMA New Jersey Chapter Event: Advertising and Promotions Law: Keeping Trademarks, Copyrights, Ads Legal

11/13/2012 | Florham Park, NJ

SEE ALL UPCOMING EVENTS> 

Miller: Technology and marketing 'utterly intertwined'

At UBM Tech's Online Marketing Summit (OMS) last week in Santa Clara, Calif., there was a laser-like focus on how technology is affecting B2B marketers. "Tech and marketing are completely and utterly intertwined right now," said Paul Miller, CEO of UBM Tech, whose brands include InformationWeek and the Interop and Black Hat events. Miller, a national board member of the BMA, spoke with BMA Buzz about the wedding of IT and marketing as well as a new organizational structure at UBM Tech designed to streamline sales.

Marketers are getting into a comfort zone with Web advertising. Internet ad revenue grew to $17 billion in the first half of the year, a 14% increase compared with the same time period in 2011, according to a new report by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB). The report, which was conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), said that mobile advertising rose to $1.2 billion in the first six months of the year, a 95% spike compared with the year-earlier period.

Finding the influencer needle in the tech-buying haystack >

Five online best practices b-to-b can learn from b-to-c >

Lead-gen is mainstream, but some do it better than others >
When should I send emails for optimal results? >

How to optimize time with a C-level executive >

Popcorn is for the movies, not marketing >

Marketing Specialist
OfficeMax, Naperville, IL

The OfficeMax mission is simple. We help our customers do their best work. The company provides office supplies and paper, in-store print and document services through OfficeMax ImPress™, technology products and solutions, and furniture to consumers and to large, medium and small businesses.

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