With 6 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide, 72% of the U.S. workforce already mobile, a 200% growth rate forecast for tablet computers, and smartphones now outpacing PC sales, mobile signifies the most sweeping media of all time. Far more than just a new communications channel, this anytime-anywhere media is creating a sea of change across the way we live and work, and driving permanent shifts across our habits, preferences, expectations and thresholds. All told, mobile’s story is one of revolution—and B2B marketers, in particular, must align their efforts with these dramatic changes.

In this eye-opening, exciting session, B2B marketing specialist and featured mobile speaker Christina “CK” Kerley will illuminate why mobile ignites a revolution, how B2Bs can bolster their marketing through mobile’s vast tools and what imperatives they must heed in order to improve their ROI and ensure their market relevance.

About Christina “CK” Kerley

“A powerhouse… B2B couldn’t have a smarter, more engaging or more dedicated advocate driving them to adapt to today’s technologies, and inspiring them to advance their businesses.”

The high-energy, highly engaging marketer known simply as “CK” guides B2Bs through the opportunities and complexities of modern marketing (and modern technologies). An impassioned voice in B2B, CK’s insights and personality have made her a popular speaker, writer, adjunct professor and industry advocate for marketing innovation in the often-overlooked, but forever fascinating world of B2B.

For over 17 years, 12 of which through her own business, she has worked with Fortune 500s, mid-sized enterprises and start-up companies in industries spanning technology, media, mobile, life sciences and professional services. Her projects include IBM, Verizon, Johnson & Johnson, Ingenix, ClearPoint, FCG, ISI, Symbol Technologies and the Syndicated Network Television Association—an organization of the top TV studios including Paramount, Warner Bros., Disney and NBC-Universal.

Praised for her smarts, passion and energy, CK has presented at Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Neutrogena, Cisco, Sun Microsystems, The American Marketing Association, Business Marketing Association, as well as Rutgers University, Stanford University and The United Nations. CK’s seminal industry guide, The Mobile Revolution & B2B, provides executives with a framework for navigating the dramatic shifts and harnessing the unprecedented opportunities that mobile is driving across their executive audiences.

Her views and advice have been cited in Inc. Magazine, BtoB Magazine, Mobile Marketer, Chief Content Officer, IDG, Folio Magazine, The New York Post, MarketingProfs, MediaPost, iMedia Connection, and Tactics Magazine. Her insights have been quoted in books including The New Influencers (Quill Driver Books, 2007), Join The Conversation (Wiley, 2007), Content Rules (Wiley, 2011) and The B2B Social Media Book (Wiley, 2012).

Based in New York City, she works with companies in the U.S. and abroad.

When:
May 15, 2012 from 5:30 – 8:30 pm

Where:
LaQuinta Inn, 60 Cottontail Lane, Somerset, NJ

Cost:
Advance Rates (By Friday 5/11):

• $45 members
• $65 nonmembers
• $25 students (with valid ID);

At the Door: $65 regardless of membership status

• Focus your communication of a consistent message to the right customers.
• Reveal new, unknown or neglected markets.
• Help fine-tune current strategies and plans to help increase market share.

Here are the eight steps for conducting a marketing audit to capture the information a corporate marketer needs about their company and how they do business.

1. Assemble an Overview of Your Company. The details to include are:

• Company location, date established, sales history, number of employees, key personnel and chronology of company events like mergers, acquisitions and divestitures.
• An estimation of the current awareness level of company as well as perception of your company has among your buying influencers.

2. Describe Your Marketing Goals and Objectives. They can be concepts like increase company visibility, increase audience size, differentiate from competition, increase or maintain market share, generate qualified sales leads or increase usage within existing customers. List your goals and objectives as being:

• Long-term, with 6 to 8 goals listed a priority order to be accomplished in the next two years.
• Short-term, with a narrowing to 1 to 2 goals to be accomplished in the next 12 months.

3. Describe Your Current Customers. Include information like:

• Job titles or functions, industry or SIC codes, geographic location, company size and other demographic, ethnic or behavioral descriptions.
• Size of current customer audience.

4. Describe Customers You’d Like to Target. Include the same type of information used in # 3 but also include:

• If target customers are outside your usual industry, geography or size of current customers.
• Any internal or external factors that have changed in your business or industry causing you to target a particular group.
• A behavior that needs to be present for retargeting to occur.
• Size of target customer audience.

5. Describe Your Product or Service. Describe it in terms of its purpose, features, benefits, pricing, sizing and distribution methods. Also include:

• Strength or weakness as compared to competition.
• Any economic, legal, social, technical, seasonal or governmental factors that affect product/service.
• Current awareness level as well as perception of your product/service.
• Sales or market share history and any changes over time.

6. Describe Your Past Business or Marketing Encounters. Describe what has:

• Helped grow your business as well as what has not helped grow business.
• Not been tried but might have helped.
• Your competition has been doing to grow their business.

7. Identify Three to Six Competitors. Include the company name and location as well as:

• Describe their products/services in terms of their features, benefits, pricing, sizing and distribution methods.
• Sales or market share history.
• Competition’s strategy for the near future.

8. Begin to Outline a Communication Plan. Begin to list current and future media sources as well if costs are fixed annual costs, and what funds are available for new efforts for:

• Advertising vehicles like broadcast, print, out-of-home and online advertising.
• Promotional vehicles like website, collateral, direct marketing, interactive and online marketing.
• Media relation vehicles like media contacts, public relations and articles.
• Event vehicles like trade shows, special events, seminars and webinars.
• Analytic vehicles like databases, market research and tracking systems.
• List any promotional medium considered to be the most effective to date.

Once this information is written down on paper, you can refer back to it as your roadmap to achieving your marketing goals and objects for the coming year. And as new ideas pop up, this document can help remind you of the big picture. Minor adjustments can be made along the way as changes are bound to occur in sales, customer retention and product development throughout the year.

About Nancy Rago: Nancy is vice president of design and production at Brigham & Rago Marketing Communications. Before co-founding Brigham & Rago in 1991, Nancy honed her design and production skills holding both agency and client-side positions. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Communications from Kean University. Nancy earned her CBC credential from the Business Marketing Association (BMA) and has been a member of the organization for over twenty years. A Certified Business Communicator is someone who’s passed a rigorous exam demonstrating knowledge of all aspects of business-to-business marketing communications from advertising planning and budgeting to measurement and accountability. Nancy has a passion for detail and investigation. Not surprisingly, one of her hobbies is tracing her family genealogy.

In 2007, National Starch spent 6% of their budget on web advertising – a number which has grown steadily over the years. Early on, Marc made the decision to avoid advertising on home pages, where competition for eyeballs is most intense, and where it is easy for a message to get lost in the clutter. Instead, the team at National Starch focused on pages where the content was closely aligned to their product, typically deeper into the website. This allowed them to “own” the subject matter, and avoid “eyeball hijacking” by competing ads.

By advertising alongside relevant content, it ensures greater engagement with the reader and leads to a greater incentive to click on the banner ad. According to Marc, one such campaign achieved a click-through rate of 2.23%, compared to their B2B benchmark of 0.1-0.2%. More importantly, time spent on the page ranged from 1.05 – 8.07 minutes, with an average of 2 minutes.

National Starch’s recent “Healthy Baking Campaign” was centered around a  whitepaper, allowing a call to action to download the material. One element of the campaign involved a video on The Bakery Channel (a third-party website) with a National Starch pre-roll and surrounding banner ads. This gained a 12.38% CTR, and a completion rate double that of the industry average, at 36%.

Throughout the presentation, Marc provided examples of the contextual banner ads and their impact on the advertising program. A lively Q&A session delved more deeply into use of web metrics to drive marketing results.

You have a Facebook page. You have a LinkedIn account. You even have a Twitter account. And they’re all focused on your company or business.

You’ve spent time building your key social media platforms for your company. But now what? How do you effectively use them for truly integrated marketing with your offline and other online campaigns?

BMA-NJ’s B2B Social Media Symposium isn’t your typical “how to do” social media session. At BMA-NJ’s half-day symposium – with two sessions and a lunch keynote – you’ll see real-life case studies on how companies have successfully integrated social media into their marketing programs.

You’ll learn how socially engaged businesses achieve competitive advantage through social media tools. And you’ll come away with actionable ideas to solve your own marketing problems.

Opening Remarks and Program Introductions

Steve is a B2B marketing executive with more than 20 years experience in Industrial and High-tech industries.  His global business experience includes many years of working with Asian and European customers and suppliers, and promoting emerging technologies through multiple sales channels.

Steve is an enthusiastic early adopter of new marketing platforms including LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube, and has successfully implemented Digital B2B Marketing programs with Panasonic.

He regularly discusses current digital marketing issues on his personal blog.

9:45 am to 10:45 am – LinkedIn for B2B

With more than 150 million members, LinkedIn is one of the most used resources for professional and personal networking. With new features, using LinkedIn for B2B marketing is offering new ways for business marketers to prospect for leads.

Carrie brings 10+ years of experience implementing digital and integrated programs across various verticals, including technology, financial services, consumer packaged goods, and pharmaceuticals.

11:00 am to 12:00 pm – Google+ for Businesses

With the release of Google+, B2B marketers have another new tool for social media success. During this session, Judith will explain the evolution of Google+, best practices for businesses looking to leverage Google+, and how to get started.

As Google’s social specialist for the B2B vertical market and the voice of the @GoogleB2BTeam Twitter feed, Judith monitors the social strategies for leading B2B brands and develops custom marketing solutions across Google platforms. After 8 years of working in brand management, Judith joined Google in 2010 and has worked with brands in the Global Manufacturing, Transportation & Logistics and Consulting Industries.

We’re delighted that Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor and President of Find New Customers is delivering our keynote address.

Jeff has built a highly successful marketing consulting business via publishing remarkable content on his blog, social media and other sites. His blog is in broad syndication and he also hosts a popular marketing show called Mad Marketing TV, which publishes on YouTube twice a week. He’s also a professional writer and speaker, having penned four white papers and he is a national speaker for the Business Marketing Association.

He was also a guest on Hubspot TV and also on Intrepid Radio.  He’s a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and he lives on Long Island with his wife and three boys.

When: April 10, 2012 from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm

Where: Sheraton Lincoln Harbor, 500 Harbor Blvd., Weehawken, NJ

Cost:

Early Bird Registration (with payment in full received before 3/21):
$119 members
$169 nonmembers

Regular Registration (from 3/22 to 4/6):
$139 members
$189 nonmembers

Late Registration (after 4/6 or at the door):
$149 members
$199 nonmembers

Haya F. Taitel, marketing director, CORDIS, a Johnson & Johnson company, uses market assessments to determine the right lever for the most efficient and successful product marketing. And she’ll share her secrets with BMA-NJ at this event!

Because pharmaceutical marketing relies on targeting both consumers and medical professionals, these campaigns cross the boundaries between B2B and B2C for a truly integrated marketing strategy. Through case studies, Haya will share how she identifies and integrates multiple elements into a successful product launch addressing various buying levers within the buying cycle, increasing significant product penetration and market differentiation.

Speaker:
Haya F. Taitel, marketing director, CORDIS, a J&J company

When:
March 13, 2012 from 5:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Where:
Hamilton Park Hotel & Conference Center, 175 Park Ave., Florham Park, NJ

Cost:
$45 members / $65 nonmembers / $25 students
At door (regardless of membership status) $75

About Haya

Haya F. Taitel is the Marketing Director – CORDIS organization where she is leading the cardio revascularization and endovascular franchises.

Prior to this, she served as Group Product Director leading the pain franchise of Ortho-McNeil Janssen Pharmaceuticals overseeing two analgesic products NUCYNTA® IR and NUCYNTA® ER.  Her success is based on an innovative pre-launch non-branded campaign, aggressive promotional marketing and a competitive positioning with payer and employer groups despite a generic dominant market place.

Haya oversaw the market introduction of multiple analgesic, urology, endocrinology and women’s health care products. More specifically, ELMIRON, which has grown 300% in two years under her leadership. The latter marketing campaign became the case study of the Marketing Excellence curriculum (internal JNJ gold standard marketing platforms).

She has also led the marketing of oral contraceptives (including the first acne indication breaking class labeling) and hormonal replacement therapies including a licensing deal to an external company.

Haya was also the owner of a self start company, is the owner of two patents, author of multiple publications and the recipient of the Optimus (peer nominated for excellence in leadership) and a few standards of leadership awards within Johnson and Johnson.

Deep content marketing encompasses the strategy of placing online ads deep within the websites of third parties. The idea is to specifically target pages directly relating to your own products or services.

In 2007, National Starch/Corn Products, the leading supplier of innovative food ingredients, successfully ventured into the world of deep content marketing. Avoiding the home pages of third-party websites, they placed ads on pages deep within the sites, on pages matching their own goals and initiatives. The result … impressive numbers of click-throughs and content downloads.

Want to learn more? Then join BMA-NJ as Marc Green, senior manager of marketing communications for National Starch/Corn Products, when he shares their deep content marketing strategy, results and key learnings. Marc Green also is a former chairman of BMA National and continues to serve on its board of directors. In 2011, B2B magazine named Marc Green as one of the country’s top 25 digital marketers: “b2b marketers who are doing exceptional interactive work.”

Speaker:  Marc Green, senior manager, marketing communications, National Starch/Corn Products

When:       Feb. 21, 2012 from 5:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Where:      Wilshire Grand Hotel, 350 Pleasant Valley Way, West Orange, NJ

Cost:          Advanced Registration*: $45 members / $65 nonmembers / $25 students

Registration* after Feb. 16 or at the door (regardless of membership status) $75

Advanced registration for this event closes at 5:00 pm on Thursday, Feb. 16.

The QR code has gained popularity outside of the auto industry because it has a comparatively large storage capacity and can be quickly read by smart phones using a code reader and the phone’s camera.

Today, QR codes are being used to as a tool to link offline marketing collateral to online media. They are wonderfully convenient to use, very versatile in where and how they can be used, readily accessible to people, allow campaign results to be easily tracked, and inexpensive. So, how can one possibly misunderstand or misuse this tool?

First, while most people in the marketing industry have heard about the wonders of the QR code, people outside the industry have not. They don’t know what that little box is, what it does or how to use it. Thus they don’t care about it. So, until the boxes are more common and understood, clear instructions should be included on how to scan a QR code and how it will benefit the user.

Second, the QR code will be scanned with a mobile device, but we often forget to optimize the linked Web pages for mobile device viewing. People do not want to waste their time trying to download or open a webpage that just won’t work or cannot be easily read. And, especially important to note, Apple products like the iPhone can’t view Flash items.

Also, problems arise when we use proprietary codes that require a specific QR code reader.  No one is going to download separate apps to just to read a code that may or may not benefit them.

QR codes can be printed anywhere – from magazine ads to t-shirts to direct mail. And more frequently, they’re being used in places that aren’t conducive to scanning, particularly via a mobile device. Such places include billboards – which are too high up to get a clean scan from a car – on ads in the PATH station – where, to my annoyance, there is no cell service – or on the back of a delivery van (can you see the police report for that accident?!).

So, now that you have your QR code and you know what marketing collateral you want to put it on, how do you maximize the chances of having a great campaign? Two things come to mind. First, always, always, always test the code, with a variety of smart phones, to make sure it works. Second, always offer value. Make it worth the person’s time to scan the code and go to your webpage. Whether it’s a free download, a contest, coupons, or special gifts, just make sure it holds some value for the target.

QR codes are a marvelous new tool. But like any tool, they need to be used properly to reap their benefits.

Date: January 10, 2012

Hours: 5:30 – 8:30 pm.

Location: Famished Frog, Morristown, NJ.

Advance Registration:

BMA-NJ Members & Future Members: $25*

Student Price (w ID): $10.

At the door: $35 regardless of member status.

*Includes one “FREE Drink” Coupon. Advance registration must be completed by Sunday 1/8 Midnight. If closed, use the waitlist and you will be contacted if space is available.

When people think of social media around products and companies, they immediately think of complaints. And Mike showed that it’s true that this is often seen on many message boards and blogs. But since these comments are out there, it’s better to be aware and respond, than to ignore what’s being said about you. For example, a blog posting that stated “Never buy from Buy.com” was, for a while, the #4 result on Google for “Buy.com” searches.

Brand Reputation

Mike made the point that your brand reputation used to be how you act and what you did. Now it’s what other people say about you online. Since these comments are kept as a “permanent record” online, there are no more 1-day PR stories – anything negative must be dealt with in a way that shows you care. Feedback is also immediate – many restaurants are now reviewed by diners while they are still in the restaurant, waiting for their check, not by an annual visit from the local newspaper editor.

“If you’re talking in Social Media, you’d better be listening” Mike warned the BMA group. Imagine walking into a cocktail party and immediately start talking loudly about yourself – it would be rude and counter-productive, and people would avoid you. So listen to some conversations first, and then start to add valuable comments in the same tone and manner as the discussions around you. Mike described his recommended process of “Listen – Plan & Organize – Engage – Measure”.

Since there is so much data available, you need a way to track and analyze the 3 types of conversations described by Mike – Public  (Twitter, Blogs); Private (Facebook, LinkedIn): and In-between (Ratings, Reviews). The “In-between” category can be the most valuable, but also the hardest to track since most review sites prevent search engines from using this data. Several tools such as Converseon, Radian6 and Nielsen can be used to assist in this analysis (Mike Moran serves as Chief Strategist at Converseon).

Analyzing the Conversations

Listening tools gather data from many sources including Twitter, blogs, Facebook and message boards, and then analyze them for keywords, patterns and “sentiment” using boolean logic. Sentiment analysis is critical to identify negative comments but, as Mike described, there are many hurdles to accurate sentiment analysis since words have multiple meanings dependent on the context.  For example “unpredictable” is probably a negative comment for a restaurant, but positive for a movie. Another challenge with listening tools is when the brand or product name is also a generic word. For cellphone companies “T-Mobile” is easy to isolate, but “Sprint” tends to find results of high school athletics!

To analyze the data, visualization techniques can be used to combine and present the conversation data in appealing formats, to highlight the relations between comments and the relative influence of certain participants.

Visualization of Social Media Listening

Mike concluded his presentation with a vision of how listening tools will develop. Detailed, multi-layer listening dashboards; non-text objects; multilingual capabilities; and predictive modeling techniques will all be introduced to improve the capabilities of Social Media Listening.

BMA-NJ thanks Mike Moran for taking the time to share his expertise with the B2B marketers of New Jersey.

You can hear more from Mike in his regular posts at Biznology.com or follow him @mikemoran.

Paul, the author of “Social Marketing to the Business Customer”, kicked off the evening with some statistics to highlight the ubiquity of social media – the average length of a Facebook session is 51 minutes; 152 million blogs exist on the internet; and 48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.

Following the theme of his earlier book, “The New Influencers“, Paul suggested that the Influence pyramid has been inverted. A few years ago, there were only 50,000 key influencers in the US ( the top newspaper editors), whereas now they can come from any background, via the web.

In a lighthearted example of the power of influencers, the BMA attendees were treated to the story of Universal’s launch of the Harry Potter theme park. Instead of a traditional mass PR campaign, they chose to hold a private event for the seven most influential online Harry Potter fans. Within 48 hours, Universal claims that 250 million people knew of the launch through peer networks.

Paul started a lively debate when he talked about the impact of TripAdvisor on the hotel industry, as he cited the example of a hotel in Martha’s Vineyard which was able to cut their marketing budget by 60% after achieving a #1 ranking on the site.

In addition to case studies from Dell (using Facebook to turn complainers into fans), and UPS (cutting recruitment costs using social media channels to find applicants), Paul made the point that Social Business is primarily about Thought Leadership and “the Big Idea”, not necessarily direct ROI.

Finally, when considering your Social Media strategy, Paul urged BMA members to ask the question “Do you have a plumbing strategy? A hammer strategy? A copier strategy?”. Instead, realize that social media is a set of tools, and the key is to use the right tools for the job at hand. To underline his point, he suggested that, if you are in a niche business with a small, well-defined customer base, “…your best Social Media tool is the Golf Course!”

BMA-NJ will continue the discussion of Social Media Marketing on December 6th when Mike Moran,author of “Do it Wrong Quickly” and founder of the Biznology blog, will discuss the value of Social Media Listening.