Customer Engagement

As marketers plan to launch a new product or enter a new market, one of the most daunting challenges involves sourcing advocates to support the launch. In the case of a new product, a stable of satisfied customers does not yet exist; and in a new market, reference assets derived from other markets may be viewed as not entirely relevant.

Forrester just published its “India Tech Market Outlook: 2014” report; here’s a summary. We expect the Indian economy to start recovering from the tough situation it faced in 2013. It will start picking up (albeit at a slower rate) in 2014 thanks to good monsoons, an uptick in exports due to the weakening of the […]

One thing that’s becoming abundantly clear for B2B companies is that customers and prospects are interacting with each other in ways we couldn’t imagine just a short time ago.  Technologies are enabling these interactions, and marketers are scrambling to understand how to become part of the conversation (or at least know that the conversation is […]

Disclaimer: I am not a political analyst, and this post is not intended to promote any political party. December 8 was an historic day for Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which arose from the anti-corruption movement of Anna Hazare a year ago, achieved a spectacular result in Delhi’s assembly elections — one far beyond […]

By Sudhanshu Bhandari and Manish Bahl India is going through a tough time: Poor policy, delayed reforms, the free fall of the rupee against major currencies, multibillion-dollar scams, and political gridlock are all negatively affecting the country’s growth. However, we anticipate the Indian economy will start picking up — albeit at a slower rate — […]

By Sudhanshu Bhandari and Manish Bahl India is going through a tough time: Poor policy, delayed reforms, the free fall of the rupee against major currencies, multibillion-dollar scams, and political gridlock are all negatively affecting the country’s growth. However, we anticipate the Indian economy will start picking up — albeit at a slower rate — in 2014, mainly […]

Recently, I saw a tweet from my second favorite baseball team, the Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers). They wanted my feedback!  As a SiriusDecisions analyst focusing on the customer experience (among other things) and a baseball enthusiast, I thought this offer was right in my ballpark. While this is a B2C example of gathering customer feedback, […]

Digitally empowered customers are forcing firms to redefine their engagement model to survive in the age of the customer. Data from Forrester’s Forrsights Budgets And Priorities Survey, Q4 2013, indicates that Indian CIOs’ top business priority is to address the rising expectations of customers and improve customer satisfaction; 87% of them told us that it […]

Focusing on customer experience – what happens after the buyer’s journey ends – is essential to supporting wins within the buyer’s journey. However, few marketing functions are structured, staffed or funded to support this focus.

Many marketers find that despite their best efforts, they’re somehow not achieving the results they’d hoped for with their customer marketing programs. Common challenges include sourcing an adequate number of possible reference targets (especially references for new or strategic products) and effectively using reference assets once they’re acquired. Because sales is a primary consumer of […]

It is no surprise that a significant amount of work is being done at marketing service providers (MSPs), customer engagement agencies (CEAs), and direct and digital agencies to differentiate their organizations abilities. The vendor landscape is crowded and competitive, which creates a complex environment for marketers and customer intelligence professionals. How can they choose the […]

One of the most popular topic areas within the account-based marketing service at SiriusDecisions is customer marketing. B2B companies of all sizes and industries are attempting to meet the challenges of focusing on customer marketing and where it fits in the organization chart.

Content Marketing World 2013 was a success! Here are the top five takeaways from day two, through the B2B lens.

Did you miss Content Marketing World this year? Here are five insights and takeaways from the first day of the 2013 Content Marketing World conference.

In the age of digitally empowered customers, advancements in the ubiquitous, multimedia web collaboration space will gain momentum, riding on the developments in web real-time communication (WebRTC) technology. While still nascent in Asia Pacific, according to WebRTC Stats, as of March 2013 more than 11% of the video calls in Asia Pacific were made leveraging […]

In a recent blog post, I hypothesized that customer experience and workforce experience are two sides of the same coin. For me, it was captured perfectly during a recent research interview with Blair McHaney, Gold’s Gym franchise owner and user of Medallia customer experience management tools. He said, “Your customer experience will be less than […]

To take advocacy programs to the next level, marketers need to follow their own advice by becoming advocacy advocates, promoting the value of advocacy within their organizations. This is a great way to raise awareness for the good work your team is doing to generate advocacy content.

In large, complex B2B organizations, content expertise is inconveniently spread across functional silos. Therefore, best practice content creation must be a collaborative effort in a cross-functional process.

The best sales pitch is a good customer relationship. Establish communications that support development of that relationship, and help the customer get value out of the current investment, and the customer will find it a lot easier to make the next investment.