Comments from K2 Global Communications

Keep your edge and grow with targeted strategies and tactics. The key is to adapt what works at home and translate it into international marketing success.

Topics: International Marketing

Successful international marketing requires more than cloning your domestic marketing efforts

If you think it’s time to break into new markets, don’t just plan to clone your domestic marketing efforts. The strategy and messages that may resonate with home-country audiences may not work in foreign business landscapes. Before you start your global expansion plans, check these five marketing tactics:

Topics: International Marketing

Topics: Marketing, Persona, Brand, Customer communications, Audience, Sales, Planning, Marketing strategy, Tactics

Marketing and selling to B2B customers used to be a lot easier, straightforward, and predictable. As marketers and salespeople, you were in charge.

Topics: Marketing, Sales, Client relations, B2B, Marketing strategy, Tactics, Buyer's journey, Sales funnel

 

Understanding the role of market research and up-to-date intelligence

An article on 31 product launch statistics for 2022 revealed this nugget from a Harvard Business School professor: about 30,000 new products are launched each year, and about 95 percent of these will probably fail.

Topics: Market research, Customer communications, Message, Messaging, B2B, Marketing strategy

Hmmm…should this be a blog or rant?

We’re constantly amazed at the number of companies who’ve been around for years and don’t have a cohesive messaging document (MD).

While I understand the aversion – MDs are difficult to execute, with various stakeholders within the company trying to get their voices heard – a well-conceived MD creates a virtual paint-by-numbers scenario, where all of your USPs are well defined for audiences across the purchasing chain, smoothing the account-based marketing process.

Topics: Marketing, Brand, Customer communications, Message, Messaging, Corporate communications, Client relations, Integrated marketing

B2B messaging should clearly explain the unique selling propositions (USPs) and myriad advantages of your solution to everyone participating in purchasing process. Sometimes, that just isn’t achieved.

Fail 1 - The “too-broad” B2B messaging

General marketing blah-blah is not appreciated. Technology products are very rarely designed for general use, and the more specific you message to your personas, the better. Messaging must make it immediately apparent who benefits from your product and how.

Topics: Persona, Customer communications, Message, Messaging, B2B

Taking an account-based marketing (ABM) approach pinpoints your focus on a few high-opportunity, high-value accounts who are more likely to pay attention to your communications because they actually need your product and have the budget for it.

Topics: Marketing, Inbound marketing, Messaging, PR, Account-based marketing, Sales, ABM

At first glance, account-based marketing (ABM) and inbound seem like polar opposites: ABM focuses on decision makers within particular enterprises and engages them with personalized communication. Inbound marketing takes a more expansive approach, attracting customers to products and services by creating valuable content.

Topics: Marketing, Inbound marketing, Messaging, PR, Account-based marketing, Sales, ABM

Build up ABM success by bringing down the silos

Not all prospects give you the best fit or highest value for your solution - thus, the ever-increasing adoption of account-based marketing. Approximately 92 percent of B2B marketers consider ABM a critical component of their marketing efforts; and 87 percent of ROI-measuring marketers say that ABM tops all other marketing investments.

Topics: Marketing, Inbound marketing, Messaging, PR, Account-based marketing, Sales, ABM