The business world consists of interlinked entities, which require acting cooperatively in order to reach the desired aims. Individuals are at the core of business-to-business (B2B) marketing and are responsible for making decisions, negotiating, networking, branding, and all other of the firm’s vital processes. Especially in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the role of individuals is important, as those in charge of the SMEs are often the face and the mind of a company. However, the role of the individual in B2B marketing literature has often been overlooked. This book covers the gap by providing a variety of novel perspectives that involve individuals as central figures in the B2B marketing environment. This book will provide practical implications on the topics in focus, which will bring the role and importance of individuals to the fore in the understanding of how B2B marketing works. It introduces readers to the role of embedded individual managers in developing and changing business systems and networks and consists of three core sections: cognition (individual sensemaking within a business environment), action (decision-making in business networks), and finally, contextualization (interrelation between micro- and macro-levels). Each section is supported with case studies to exemplify the research ideas presented. Individuals in B2B Marketing offers a comprehensive investigation into this much overlooked topic and will be a valuable resource for marketing, entrepreneurship, and international business scholars and graduate students in particular.

Advance your B2B marketing plans with proven social media strategies Learn social media's specific application to B2B companies and how it can be leveraged to drive leads and revenue. B2B marketers are undervalued and under appreciated in many companies. Social media and online marketing provide the right mix of rich data and reduction in marketing expenses to help transform a marketer into a superstar. The B2B Social Media Book provides B2B marketers with actionable advice on leveraging blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and more, combined with key strategic imperatives that serve as the backbone of effective B2B social media strategies. This book serves as the definitive reference for B2B marketers looking to master social media and take their career to the next level. Describes a methodology for generating leads using social media Details how to create content offers that increase conversion rates and drive leads from social media Offers practical advice for incorporating mobile strategies into the marketing mix Provides a step-by-step process for measuring the return on investment of B2B social media strategies The B2B Social Media Book will help readers establish a strong social media marketing strategy to generate more leads, become a marketing superstar in the eye of company leaders, and most importantly, contribute to business growth.

A second volume in the series that began with The One to One Manager analyzes the experiences of seven top companies to offer guidance on such issues as hiring and training the best salespeople and selling multiple product lines.

B2B marketing is functioning in an increasingly fast-paced and complex business landscape, with a wealth of new technologies, tools and channels, and where customers are more in control of the buying process than ever before. With the imperative to become 'digital', B2B marketers have become consumed by the marketing activity itself - the tactics - instead of the outcomes marketers want and need to achieve for customers and businesses. B2B Marketing Strategy provides fresh insight into the challenges marketers are facing in such an environment and offers a new framework for developing B2B marketing strategy and plans. Written by an internationally recognised and award winning senior marketing strategist, B2B Marketing Strategy is a thought-provoking and comprehensive exploration of the state of B2B marketing. Expertly examined, this book will challenge the perspective of B2B marketers by confronting and refuting the many fallacies that currently dominate the industry. Filled with real-world case studies and practical, actionable insights, B2B Marketing Strategy takes the reader through three phases of thinking, doing and being different in order to make B2B marketing memorable in the hearts and minds of customers, creating lasting customer engagement.

Social media practitioners share their combined 20 years of hands-on social media experience explaining to best leverage social media for a business.

The Hands-On, Up-to-the-Minute Guide to Generating Better-Qualified, Quicker-to-Close B2B Leads! Lead generation is "Job One": B2B marketers' single most important objective. Maximizing Lead Generation brings together everything you need to know to do it right. Fast-paced and 100% practical, it will help you achieve outstanding results in any B2B marketplace from enterprise technology to industrial equipment to professional services. World-renowned expert Ruth P. Stevens helps you bring science and systematization to all facets of lead generation, building on process, best practices, continuous testing, and ongoing improvement. You'll learn how to maximize the value of tried-and-true B2B tools and the newest social, web, and search technologies. Stevens offers indispensable insights for the entire lead lifecycle, including qualification, nurturing, measurement, and tracking. Organized for clarity, usability, and speed, this book will help you supercharge salesforce productivity and company profits. You'll Learn How To: · Develop and refine rules that consistently lead to higher-quality leads · Gain deeper insights into your customers and their buying processes · Build sophisticated, accurate marketing databases · Identify the media most likely to work for you · Execute highly effective campaigns · Drive huge ROI improvements · Use BANT and other qualification criteria · Apply new "nurturing" techniques to convert "duds" into "diamonds" · Track results and quantify the business value of campaigns · Utilize best practices content marketing and marketing automation · Integrate continuous improvement into lead generation · Discover 10 trends that will transform the way you prospect

To succeed at B2B marketing today, you must excel across all areas: from getting your message out, to generating demand, to enabling sales teams. New technologies and new techniques make excellence possible. Now, top B2B marketer Kim Ann King brings together all the best practices and tools you need to make excellence real. In The Complete Guide to B2B Marketing, King helps you succeed by focusing on the three pillars of cutting-edge B2B marketing: automation, personalization, and experimentation. Drawing on her pioneering experience at companies like Akamai and Open Market, King shows how to: Systematically assess your context and customer, via personas, profiles, and other powerful techniques Choose among today's panoply of marketing options, tools, and techniques Build a more agile B2B marketing organization, and link its goals more tightly to strategy More accurately estimate marketing spend and ROI Systematically optimize demand generation and many other key functions Leverage higher-value approaches to web/mobile, SEO, and customer community-building Gain more value from corporate standards and your creative services vendors Discover what worked and what didn't, and use this knowledge to improve more quickly You'll find comprehensive, actionable resources, including best-practices checklists for every tactic, vendor checklists for evaluating new marketing technologies, a complete corporate marketing plan outline, and a start-to-finish marketing communications case study. If you're a B2B marketer, you'll find The Complete Guide to B2B Marketing invaluable – whatever your company's size, product, service, or industry.