Welcome to Episode 26 of The B2B Marketing Podcast, brought to you by Voices in Business.

Today’s show covers the topic of risk-taking in marketing. Trevor Salomon, Senior Marketing Director at Symantec responsible for strategic and tactical marketing to enterprises across the company’s Europe, Middle East and Africa business, talks to Greg Grimer of Voices in Business about when to take risks and when not to, discussing topics such as measurement, ROI and selling risk-taking internally, also providing some examples of successful and unsuccessful risk taking.

Trevor has a strong commercial background with over 20 years experience in senior marketing management roles in a variety of software and consultancy companies, including CMG, Coopers & Lybrand, SAP UK, J.D. Edwards and Adobe.

Show notes for this episode:

00:15 – Introduction
00:58 – Start of interview
02:02 – Why don’t marketers take more risks?
03:31 – Measuring the effectiveness of marketing activities
05:00 – The importance of business planning
06:42 – An example: corporate blogging
08:29 – “Baby steps” and “risklets”
11:00 – Dangers of focusing too much on measurement
13:16 – The safety zone of trade shows
14:43 – The “soft R” option of an ROI
15:36 – What exactly IS a “Sales Lead”?
18:10 – Examples of successful & unsuccessful risk-taking
22:45 – How to sell risk-taking internally
24:00 – Involving the Finance team
27:48 – Advice for marketers new into the job
29:16 – The 90-day approach
31:46 – Aligning Sales and Marketing
34:53 – Direct communication between Marketing and customers
38:56 – Value statements
39:56 – End of interview and wrap-up

We welcome all feedback, so please leave a comment here on the website, call us to leave an audio comment on +44 (0) 7193 1295, or send a message to comments@voicesinbusiness.com

Listen Now:

To listen to the podcast right now, click on the player icon below.

Welcome to Episode 25 of The B2B Marketing Podcast, brought to you by Voices in Business.

Today’s show is all about e-mail marketing, one of the most effective forms of B2B marketing when used well, but so often misused and badly done.

Greg Grimer of Voices in Business discusses the subject in depth with Edward Weatherall, Managing Director and Richard Hartshorne, Business Development Director at Concep Global, a firm that provides marketing services and technology globally, helping firms build, manage and deliver digital communication programs.

Show notes for this episode:

00:15 – Introduction
01:06 – Start of interview
01:22 – Concep background (Richard)
01:52 - The current state of affairs with B2B e-mails (Ed)
04:16 – Trade show follow-up & human interaction
07:00 – What can actually be sent via e-mail?
08:48 – The autoplay mistake
09:38 – “Clever” e-mails that encourage interaction
11:20 – The importance of doing research first
11:54 – Important steps to follow when e-mail marketing
14:01 – Integrating the e-mail with the website
16:08 – E-mail etiquette and personalisation
17:40 – Dealing with third parties, list brokers & solution vendors
19:30 – Acquiring registration details
21:15 – Cost/time issues
23:15 – Selling vs “facilitating a buying decision”
24:24 – Having multiple touch points
25:18 – Permission-based communications
27:05 – Summary of points discussed
31:00 – Some final thoughts on e-mail length & subject relevance
33:29 – End of interview and wrap-up

We welcome all feedback, so please leave a comment here on the website, call us to leave an audio comment on +44 (0) 20 7193 1295, or send a message to comments@voicesinbusiness.com

Listen Now:

To listen to the podcast right now, click on the player icon below.

Welcome to Episode Twenty-Four of The B2B Marketing Podcast, brought to you by Voices in Business.

In today’s show, Greg Grimer talks to Andrew Campling, BT’s General Manager for London and SE England, about a successful three year project the company has undertaken to align marketing and sales functions, corporate social responsibility achievements and the future of virtual meetings.

BT is a leading global provider of communication solutions, with a presence in 170 countries.

Listen Now:

Welcome to Episode Twenty-Three of The B2B Marketing Podcast, brought to you by Voices in Business.

In today’s show, Greg Grimer talks to Ivo Totev, Chief Marketing Officer of Software AG, who recently acquired WebMethods thus creating a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) powerhouse with a strong technology base and a global presence. Greg talks to Ivo about the firm’s considered approach to blogging, their new multi-cultural team and the success they are enjoying with thier own events such as Integration World.

Listen Now:

Gregg Holzrichter, VMWare and Steve Gershik, Eloqua

Welcome to Episode Twenty-Two of The B2B Marketing Podcast, brought to you by Voices in Business. This episode is sponsored by Eloqua, industry leader in demand generation applications.

In today’s show, Vicki Zesses of Voices in Business and and Steve Gershik of Eloqua interview Gregg Holzrichter, Senior Director of Global Demand Generation for VMWare. Gregg is responsible for global campaigns, marketing operations and programs, and field marketing for the Americas.

Steve and Vicki speak with Gregg about a number issues including marketing automation, investing in marketing demand infrastructure to get ahead of the competitive power curve, segmentation and lifecycle marketing.

Listen Now:

Welcome to Episode Twenty-One of The B2B Marketing Podcast, brought to you by Voices in Business.

In today’s show, Vicki Zesses speaks with Donovan Neale-May, the Founder and Executive Director of The Chief Marketing Officer Council.

Vicki speaks with Donovan about the acceptance of the CMO role and the alignment of Marketing within its organization, and the creation of advocacy positions to build authority leadership.

Listen Now:

Welcome to Episode Twenty of The B2B Marketing Podcast, brought to you by Voices in Business.

In today’s show, Greg Grimer speaks with Mike MacDonald, Corporate Senior Vice President and President of Marketing Operations for Xerox Corporation. Mike is responsible for corporate marketing, the xerox.com website, advertising, brand, public relations, corporate communications and support staff functions.

Greg talks to Mike about a range of issues including Second Life, blogging, some of Xerox’s innovations in customer interaction, protection of brand, the interface between the Marketing and the Sales functions and the future of paper and print in an increasingly electronic world.

Listen Now:

Welcome to Episode Nineteen of The B2B Marketing Podcast, brought to you by Voices in Business.

In today’s show, Greg Grimer speaks with Regina Egea, Senior Vice President for Global Business Segment Marketing for AT&T.  Regina has held a wide variety of assignments in sales, marketing, network field operations and human resources for AT&T in both the business and consumer segments over the last 20 years.  That is a wealth of experience in marketing technology, which she brings to bear driving varied marketing programs and sales support resources for AT&T’s Business and Government clients worldwide.

Listen Now:

Vince Pizzica & John Tull

Welcome to Episode Eighteen of The B2B Marketing Podcast, brought to you by Voices in Business.

Today, John Burton speaks with Vince Pizzica, Chief Technology Officer and John Tull, Chief Marketing Officer of Alcatel Lucent, Asia.

John and Vince, who are both based in Shanghai, discuss how the business, marketing and technology functions can work together to bring knowledge, communication and sustainable commerce to some of the remotest and least developed communities in Asia.

Listen Now:

Welcome to Episode Seventeen of The B2B Marketing Podcast, brought to you by Voices in Business.

This week, Greg Grimer speaks with writer, blogger, podcaster, new media consultant and former journalist Paul Gillin. Paul regularly writes and speaks on the convergance between social media, PR and B2B Marketing. His recent book “The New Influencers”, addresses corporate marketers and executives who want to understand and engage with the vast new channels of influence that are emerging online.

Some links…

- A selection of Paul’s recently published articles
- A Selection of continuously updated useful articles from Paul about social media
- TechPR War Stories (a weekly podcast for PR people that Paul co-hosts with David Strom)
- A sample of podcasts produced by Paul

Paul’s book “The New Influencers” can be found at http://www.newinfluencers.com.

Listen Now: