Hola Todos!
In my 10th years as an academic (University of South Florida in Tampa, Suffolk University in Boston, and now Seton Hall University in north Jersey), I’m very proud to have played some part in students’ learning experience. One of the most rewarding parts of being a professor is to see the former students grow and succeed professionally. Thanks to DigNuggetville, LinkedIn, and Twitter, is much easier now to stay in touch with previous students than when I started teaching “back in the day.”
Just this week, I was in an email conversation with Chris Borkes, Marketing Director at Trade Supply Group. I asked Chris if I could post our conversation on the blog like a Topic Talk and he gracefully agreed.
Chris began:
Hey Dr. Dan-o! Hope you are doing well.
I came across this article today and wanted to send it along. It provides a few “nuggets” from the report as well as the full report if you feel like reading through it.
Resonates well with what I am doing marketing wise for some of the businesses I am working with and responsible for. Their key market segment is B2B so it was a solid read for me. It definitely provides me with some support in making some changes and in plans going forward at some of the companies.
Think you will enjoy the content on social media and B2B businesses, it is brief but provides feedback on it since you do enjoy social media a lot.
I responded:
Hola Chris – thanks for forwarding on the nugget…can I use it and some of your text below for a DigNuggetville post?
I think the hardest part on B-2-B is creating that content. I mean – whom are you creating the content for? The person you sell to (small audience) or the end user (larger audience)?
Chris responded back:
Hey Dr. Dan-O – Yes – for sure you can use this if you would like.
I agree that positioning the content is difficult to create. I find myself dealing with that every day in every marketing decision I am making with the companies (there’s four different businesses in different markets that fall under my role in the company I am with).
The majority of the company’s focus is on our relationships with the businesses we sell to and growing that business. So in addition to maintaining and growing those businesses, I believe we still have to market to the end users. This is because we want them going to the “small audience” asking/demanding the products they purchase from us. The mix of marketing to end users and businesses varies between the different companies I work with.
In my position, I am looking at it at every angle and look to the relationships I have developed with my colleagues who are out in the field every day and/or in front of our customers for feedback on what is happening in the market. I cannot be in front of customers and in the field every day. In addition to this, leveraging the relationships we have with our vendors is essential. They have great resources we can utilize to ensure we are as effective as possible in targeting our customers, developing marketing materials and campaigns, and ensuring our sales staff is as knowledgeable as possible. These definitely help me be more effective in my role setting the marketing direction, plans, and executing them.
Thank you for taking the time to read through and keep in touch. I greatly appreciate it!
-Chris
No, thank you Chris and I hope I can still be helpful in “Life after Seton Hall.”
Something to think about today…
Best regards,
Dr. Dan-o
Associate Professor of Marketing
Stillman School of Business
Seton Hall University
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