We marketers work hard to attract prospects. Here’s why you need to actively chase them away, too.
Technology Marketing
19 verbs that help to build your new marketing team
Written by Stan Woods |
All about the shape and tasks of the modern B2B marketing team and the 19 verbs that tell you what you need to do.
The emergence of marketing operations: let’s aim for yin & yang not a dialogue of the deaf.
Written by Stan Woods |
B2B marketing works best when there’s an alliance between marketing artists and scientists
Forrester gets the new B2B technology marketing
Written by Doug Kessler |
B2B technology marketing analyst Peter O’Neill of Forrester Research really gets the new B2B content marketing.
Enterprise Technology Marketing: Learning to Love the Godless Barbarians
Written by Ryan Skinner |
Witness the new IT buyer! Software acquisition’s no longer only for CIOs. We look at new IT buyers broken down into
Do the British prefer ‘muddling through’ to evidence-based B2B marketing?
Written by Stan Woods |
I was at a meeting the other day with the CMO of a leading cloud-based software vendor. Why, he asked, was it so difficult to get the lead machine working here in the UK. Three reasons sprang to mind.
B2B marketing jobs in London
Written by Lucy Longhurst |
We want your body. And your brain. We’re looking for talented copywriters, designers and project managers, so if you’re looking for a job in B2B marketing, come and talk to us.
Join the iClan
Written by Lucy Longhurst |
Just when you thought the Apple Cosa Nostra couldn’t have its fingers in more pies (or i’s) the iPad arrived to fill the void in your life that you didn’t know you had.
An infographic with sound
Written by Doug Kessler |
We love infographics here at Velocity and are big fans of Edward Tufte and Information is Beautiful and Data Flow and stuff like that. But we just had to share this one: an infographic with audio called Fractions of a Second: An Olympic Musical. It’s by Amanda Cox and The New York Times and it’s [...]
‘Margin Killers’ eBook reaches 600 downloads
Written by Lucy Longhurst |
We didn’t mention this? We’ve been working with IBS, the wholesale distribution software experts, to produce a content series on the five big success drivers in wholesale distribution. To kick the whole thing off we wrote and designed an eBook called The Six Margin Killers of Wholesale Distribution. If you want to know what I’m [...]
B2B web marketing: the platform battle
Written by Doug Kessler |
As B2B web marketing comes of age, a battle is brewing between some pretty big players (and a few upstarts) over who will become the primary dashboard for marketers. The three combatants: CRM, CMS and marketing automation vendors.
EPiServer uses market momentum to go public
Written by Stan Woods |
We just learned that our client EPiserver is preparing to go public on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. The company offers the best Micorosft .Net CMS on the planet and has delivered some really impressive numbers over the last few years.
B2B marketing agency Velocity powers up IBS relaunch
Written by Lucy Longhurst |
Velocity Partners, the B2B marketing agency for technology companies, has announced the completion of the first phase of their project to reposition IBS, the Distribution Resource Management specialists.
Our New Year’s B2B Marketing Resolutions
Written by Lucy Longhurst |
Inspired by Neil’s resolution “to eat breakfast every morning”, I got everyone at Velocity to give me their B2B marketing resolutions. So here are the new year’s resolutions from the heavyweights (especially after Christmas) at Velocity: Speak at more B2B industry events - To get the message out there that the old way of marketing is [...]
You can’t have a conversation when you use a megaphone
Written by Stan Woods |
Most B2B marketing organisations are set up for interruption-based, broadcast style communications and this traditional approach to marketing consumes 80-90% of the budget. This is strange in a world where there’s been a dramatic shift from megaphone marketing to listening and engaging in conversations. There’s need for a new type of marketing professional called a content strategist. Do you agree?
Microsoft marketing hits new low
Written by Doug Kessler |
We’ve given Microsoft’s marketing a hard time in this blog before and we’ve also had some nice words to say about them. But this one takes the cake: if you haven’t seen the new Windows 7 Launch Party campaign and the excruciating videos that support it, you must now drop everything and go see it.
Join us for a Demand Generation Webinar
Written by Doug Kessler |
Stan Woods will be taking part in what’s shaping up to be an excellent webinar on Innovation in Demand Generation and we thought you, as a loyal Velocity blog reader, might like to drop in (register here). John Watton will top the bill with a short case study on how ShipServ created 75% more sales opportunities without extra budget or headcount.
Ghost in the machine: who should write your blog?
Written by Stan Woods |
There’s a debate in the blogosphere about whether it’s right for a blog to be ghost-written, particularly one advertised as being written by a particular author. Rather than get exercised about whether this is right or wrong, the question is: can it ever work effectively? Find out what we think.
All CIOs (or CEOs) are not the same
Written by Stan Woods |
We’re often asked s for creative ideas that target ‘the C-suite’ – CEO, COO, CFO, CIO and so on. It’s natural because these guys are usually the ones to sign the cheques, particularly for significant purchases. But the question implies that these people are pretty much all the same in what they do and how they think and behave. In our experience, this isn’t true.
ShipServ wins First Tuesday ‘Most Promising Internet Company 2009′
Written by Stan Woods |
We swelled with pride yesterday when our client ShipServ won First Tuesday’s prestigious ‘Most promising Internet C
Web personas and Mind Maps
Written by Stan Woods |
Like most good digital agencies, we’ve been exploring web personas for a while and we’ve found them to be a critical aid to great site design. If you do them thoroughly, personas mean you can develop better sites faster, ones that meet the needs of your customers, prospects and other stakeholders more effectively. They force everyone to think about what users might actually want to do when they visit your site and then shape the design accordingly.
New media frenzy: the medium is just the medium
Written by Doug Kessler |
It’s an exciting time to be in the communications business. It’s not just that there are so many new ways to reach people. It’s also that we get to watch as each of these new media gropes for its place in the communications ecosystem. But all this new media is still powered by the same thing…
‘Inspired by Kittens’ – Five branding lessons from social media
Written by Stan Woods |
In September 2008, Fallon’s Executive Creative director, Al Kelly, posted a video to YouTube called Kittens Inspired by Kittens.Within five months, the video had had 4.8 million views on YouTube, 95,000 references on blogs around the world, 64,000 Tweets and 1.5 million Google searches (as well as 28 traditional media stories).
New ‘Clean Technology’ B2B marketing practice at Velocity
Written by Stan Woods |
Four recent Green Technology projects and wins build expertise 3 March 2009 Velocity Partners, the B2B agency specialising in technology marketing, has announced the creation of a ‘Clean Technology’ practice following some significant client wins over the last few months. Velocity has gained experience on a range of Green Technology / Clean Technology clients including: [...]
Why Ronald Reagan is the Spitting Image of an internet pioneer
Written by Neil Stoneman |
Presidents are all the rage. Obama and Nixon, in their own ways, are the toast of the Hollywood glitterati. And Ronald Reagan has emerged as a genuine internet pioneer.
Zappos’ culture: paying employees to leave is great marketing
Written by Stan Woods |
Zappos, the online shoe retailer, takes a distinctive approach to company culture that delivers real marketing and brand benefits. Check out his excellent presentation from O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 Summit here…
Because you’re worth it
Written by Stan Woods |
Why are so few B2B companies as good at naming things as consumer companies? B2B could learn a lot from beauty companies like L’Oreal, which uses naming to great effect.
Branding as body language
Written by Doug Kessler |
A friend of ours who also happens to be a God of Branding sent us an article he wrote ten years ago but could have been written yesterday. He’s Axel Chaldecott, co-founder of HHCL, now the top creative on the global HSBC account at JWT. The article’s central metaphor is that a company’s visual identity is its body language…
I beg you: don’t bore the bejesus out of me
Written by Doug Kessler |
Marketing is communication. B2B marketing is bad communication.
That’s how your audience thinks about everything you put out.
Their expectations couldn’t be lower. They’ve waded through thousands of case studies and brochures and web pages from people just like you and IT’S NOT FUN.
B2B Web Marketing Tools Around Town
Written by Roger Warner |
Being a nice chap, I thought I’d share a few of our secret web marketing tools with you. These are the apps and widgets that we use day in, day out to help our clients do wonderful things in SEO, PPC, and web content marketing in general….
Quick Start Pimp Your Content Guide to SEO
Written by Roger Warner |
I’ve been doing a stack of content optimisation for client web sites lately, so I thought I’d share some of my ‘how to’ notes with the interweb…. Read on for a super-simple guide to pimping your content to search engines.
Guerrilla video: VNL thinks beyond B2B
Written by Doug Kessler |
Velocity and VNL go guerrilla. The idea for the video was simple: go to Deorhi and interview the villagers about their first experiences with mobile phones. We then edited the results into a warm, compelling piece that makes the VNL story come to life…
Fighting Inertia: the toughest competitor of them all.
Written by Doug Kessler |
Most B2B technology companies have a clear set of competitors they’re battling. But for some (usually early stage) tech companies, there are no other companies to fight: they’re inventing a market. The only competitor is the inertia of the target audience. At first glance, it sounds like a great position to be in. Never facing a head-to-head competitor. Being free from the never-ending features arms race. But in reality, these can be the toughest marketing challenges of them all…
