12 Months of Learning from 12 Top B2B Marketers

Carla Johnson Author, Speaker, Consultant

Type A Communications

@CarlaJohnson

How to Make Big Changes…

A new year brings a clean slate of a new year is 365 days of possibilities. Part of what gets me excited is taking one idea, focusing on it, and then putting it into practice little by little. Huge change all at once can be hugely overwhelming. But what I find is that huge change really comes from the accumulation of taking many small steps, whether it’s becoming more open minded to the ideas of others or how you think about the work that you do as a marketer.

@CarlaJohnson

Through Consistently Small Ones

In 2014, I was lucky to spend a lot of time talking to top B2B marketers who I always feel live at the head of the comet and blaze the path for others. While there’s many facets to their success, I realized that focus is a big part of it. So here’s a list of 12 things I learned from 12 top B2B marketers – just one to focus on each month for 2015:

@CarlaJohnson

From empowering customers to

empowering employees, Button Bell talks

about how great marketing is really about

great simplification. Much of her focus for

2014 was on simplifying the brand across

the enterprise, from the website

experience to industrial design. That

takes a lot of determination to breakdown

silos, lead and facilitate collaboration,

drive cohesiveness and collaboration and

all the while elevating the impact of

marketing along the way.

Kathy Button Bell

CMO

Emerson

1 Simplification

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You have to be excellent at driving growth

for your enterprise. And the only way to

do that is to communicate and then

demonstrate the impact that marketing

can have on the entire organization –

starting with the executive team. to create

a consistent experience, marketing has to

step up and create a core platform to talk

about what growth looks like, translate it

into how that applies to every facet of the

business, and then make that come alive

through experiences for employees and

customers.

Linda Boff

Executive Director

Global Brand Marketing

GE

2 Be a good translator

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How we connect with people are the

pipes, but it’s the stories we deliver over

them that tell people what to engage with

and who to believe. Products can be

interchangeable, but what we stand for

differentiates us. It’s the stories we tell

that convey the purpose we have in the

lives of our customers. The brand is our

platform, but we put our customers at the

center of our stories…and that

responsibility is too important to be left

just to marketing. It has to be instilled into

the culture of the company.

Michael Brenner

Head of Strategy

NewsCred

3 Create a culture of content

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Aon serves as an intermediary between

insurance companies and buyers so that

buyers can make smarter decisions. For

example, if a company is building a major

facility overseas, they need someone to

help them buy that insurance – enter Aon.

But there’s so much to know about

building materials, soil conditions and

rates in different countries. That’s where

Aon created value and has shifted its

focus from transactions to consulting –

growing taking over the industry’s top

spot and also doubling its revenue

to $11 billion.

Phil Clement

Global CMO

Aon

4 Use content to create value

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Marketers deal with a lot of ambiguity and

uncertainty and the path can be blurry at

times. It’s our role to guide our companies

to where the world is going, to provide a

voice. There’s always a new relationship

or solution to figure out. In order to do

that, it means that marketing’s job is

never done; we have to think of ourselves

as being in perpetual motion. Beth Comstock

CMO

GE

5 Perpetual motion marketing

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Too often, marketers miss the point

of technology – it’s not just about

automating processes, it’s about

making it easier to engage with

audiences. Marketing needs a

technology ecosystem that

empowers both sales teams and

customers to have deeply

personalized interactions.

Eduardo Conrado

SVP Marketing & IT

Motorola Solutions

6 Focus on systems of engagement

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Marketers need to approach multiple

audiences with an integrated brand

message. What you say across all

channels has to be seamless, and ladder

up to a broader, consistent and deeply

integrated message. It has to be a single

brand with a single voice, but still vibrant

and relevant to meet the needs of specific

audiences. And it’s critical to approach

employee messaging with the same rigor

as B2B and B2C.

Antonio Lucio

Global Chief Marketing and

Communications Officer

Visa

7 Deeply integrate marketing and corporate communications

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The recession hit USG hard. In the midst

of economically disastrous times,

McGovern convinced her CEO to let

marketing have the impact that she knew

it could. Her team revitalized the brand

through a relaunch around “It’s Your

World. Build It.” and tied it to an Olympic

sponsorship. The result? Second quarter

2014 net income of $57 million was more

than double that of the same period the

previous year and the strongest for the

company in the last seven years.

Linda McGovern

Vice President, Marketing

USG

8 Activate your story

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Customers believe that sales is 88%

knowledgeable on product, but only 24%

on business expertise. But executives

value sales people with business

expertise 4 times more than product

knowledge. That’s why best-in-class

companies have twice as much training

and business discussions than their

competition. They understand the

importance of closing the business value

gap in conversations with customers and

prospects.

Tim Riesterer

Chief Strategy Officer

Corporate Visions

9 Understand your value gap

@CarlaJohnson

Emotions play a bigger part in the buying

process than either buyers or marketers

want to admit. But devotion to brands

begins and ends with an emotional

connection. Buyers are people, people

are humans and humans are emotional

beings. To convey emotion, you have to

communicate in the natural language of

your audience, looking at specific words

and phrases that are personally

appealing.

Karen Walker

Senior Vice President

Cisco

10 Create emotional content

@CarlaJohnson

As a comedy writer and stand-up

comedian, Washer talks about how the

words of actor, writer and teacher Del

Close made a difference to him in the

world of corporate communications and

content marketing. “It’s fear that keeps us

from our best. Fear to be different, fear of

not getting promoted, fear of failure.” But

when you can muster the courage to

follow that fear, what may be the most

terrifying moments in your life (and

career) may also turn into the most

rewarding.

Tim Washer

Senior Marketing Manager

Cisco

11 Follow the fear

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If people don’t hear a focus about a

specific purpose, then they focus on

activity. When marketers understand the

end goal it’s easier for them to exercise

discipline and say “no” to distractions.

Without distractions, they can produce

higher quality ideas and outcomes, rather

than slowly degrading toward high

volumes of low-quality content that no

one ends up using. When they say “no” to

distractions, they ultimately say “yes” to

greater impacts within and for the

company.

Mark Wilson

Senior Vice President

Global Marketing

Blackberry

12 Say “no” more often

@CarlaJohnson

What can you do in 2015?

Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist who’s credited with changing the way we study human cultures. She was a frequent speaker and featured author in mainstream media during the 1960s and 1970s. One of her most notable quotes highlights what marketers should keep in mind when they face the frustration of learning, and then implementing, new ideas within their own organizations…

@CarlaJohnson

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can

change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead, Cultural Anthropologist 1901-1978

1. Simplify something 2. Become a translator 3. Create a content culture 4. Use content to create value 5. Stay in perpetual motion 6. Create systems of engagement 7. Integrate with communications 8. Activate your story 9. Understand the value gap 10. Create emotional content 11. Feel the fear 12. Say “no” more often

@CarlaJohnson

Pick one thing and start small…

@CarlaJohnson

Become a “committed citizen”

What can you, as a citizen committed to the company for

which you work, change about your world?

Let’s Connect!

Carla Johnson Author, Speaker, Consultant

Type A Communications +011 (720) 344-0987

Carla@TypeACommunications.com @CarlaJohnson

www.TypeACommunications.com