Four years ago, I waved good-bye to my Pharma industry research and began writing about B2B marketing best practices, as part of Forrester’s marketing and strategy research group headed up by Elana Anderson. Harte-Hanks sponsored my first Webinar in this new role — called "Improving the Maturity of your Lead Management Process" — and Elana and I teamed up to present the webcast that aired on June 7, 2006. At that time, my research on lead management best practices was only beginning and social media was an emerging concept that Charlene Li had just started to explore in Forrester’s seminal research, the "Social Computing" report. A lot has changed since then.

Through an amazing coincidence, my life as one of Forrester’s top B2B marketing analysts begins and ends with Harte-Hanks. Tomorrow, March 30, I will broadcast my last Webinar with Forrester and I am so very pleased to do so with folks at Harte-Hanks who helped me launch this journey.

During this Webinar, Kevin Kerner of Mason Zimbler US, a Harte-Hanks company, and I will talk about how social media and online communities influence business buyers. We will also explore how B2B marketers, to successfully use social media, should focus on what they want to accomplish through social interactions with buyers and influencers.  I will share some new data describing the social behavior of business buyers, while on the job, and what this means to engaging buyers socially. Kevin will then explore practical approaches to creating successful social interactions by describing how Mason Zimbler has helped its clients to integrate social media into B2B strategies and marketing programs.

As the 6th largest direct marketing agency (according to AdAge), Mason Zimbler is a UK-based company with strong ties in the global technology industry. Harte-Hanks acquired them about two years ago, and I have gotten to know Kevin and the team at MZ more recently. I believe (in my admittedly limited experience with B2B agencies like this one) that Mason Zimbler brings a unique set of capabilities to marketers who sell to IT decision makers and to those who influence them. MZ brings a solid background in lead management best practices to the social media table.  Using this knowledge, they help marketers create socially engaging experiences that impact purchase decision-making as well as the B2B sales pipeline.

If these topics interest you, I hope you will register and join us tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. ET/11:00 a.m. PT.

I look forward to speaking with you one more time as a Forrester analyst, but I don’t believe it will be the last word you hear from me about B2B marketing.