"Being real"

I like making new year's lists and my list for my work as a marketer this year is pretty simple and short. It is to "be real". What do I mean by this? What I mean is that I believe too many of us in marketing use systematic techniques that generate a lot of activity but are not really in the best interests of your market. Here are two examples of not being real:

1. Sending unsolicited email to people that don't know you about events they have exhibited no interest in attending. How do you react when people do this to you?

2. Using marketing speak. People don't use these words in the real world.

Branding can work in B2B

Branding case studies abound in B2C but do not in the B2B world. I'm talking about real branding, not what many people in the B2B world mistake for branding. The best case study I have read so far is one from SAP and dates back to 1999-2001.

Click here to download the case study.

This was published by Center on Global Brand Leadership at Columbia Business School under the direction of Professor Bernd Schmitt.