In 2010, ITSMA posted nearly 70 pieces of research, articles, and commentaries on our website. Based on clickthroughs and downloads, these ideas were the most popular.

1. Reader’s Choice Awards:
Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories
Special Edition | February 7, 2011
Jeanne Brown
Download the full Special Edition of
ITSMA’s Top Ten Marketing Ideas of 2010.
10TOP10

2. Introduction
In 2010, we posted nearly 70
pieces of research, articles,
and commentaries on our
website. We thought they were
all gold, but some even went
platinum. Based on the
number of clickthroughs and
downloads, here are the ideas
that were the most popular
with our readers. (You can find
all the research in ITSMA’s
Online Library.) Enjoy!
Download the full Special Edition of
ITSMA’s Top Ten Marketing Ideas of 2010.
Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 2

3. 1. Marketing’s transformation began in three areas.
We identified three major
This year’s shifting priorities set the stage for
requirements for marketing transformation, rather than continued incremental change
transformation. Marketing must: Rank
2010 2009 2008 2007
1. Create a formal process for 1
2
1
4
2
3
3
7
Enabling the sales force
Generating demand
thought leadership development 3 7 5 – Developing new and more targeted thought leadership
Changing your marketing structure to increase efficiencies and
– –
and dissemination. 4
5
3
2 1 1
effectiveness
Differentiating/repositioning the company, brand, or offerings
2. Develop an automated, 6 6 10 10
Increasing focused marketing programs for vertical/industry
markets
Measuring marketing’s impact on the business
integrated closed-loop lead 7
8
9
12
11
19
11
12 Globalizing marketing
management process. 9 27 20 15 Reskilling or developing the marketing staff
Improving or enhancing customer reference and referral
10 10 – –
programs
3. Build a fact-based decision Source: ITSMA, Budget Allocations and Trends: Key Metrics Survey, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
culture supported by analytics. Data from ITSMA Key Metrics Survey | B021 2010 Budgets and Benchmarks © 2010 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 14
Read 2010: The Year of Marketing Transformation, ITSMA Featured Research: The Rise
of Thought Leadership, How to Focus Thought Leadership on Customers’ Needs and
ITSMA Online Survey: Thought Leadership.
Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 3

4. 2. Marketers must put the same rigor behind their services
development processes as they do for launching new
products.
Many companies are realizing that ad hoc services built in the field can be
costly and difficult to deploy on a larger scale. However, if they are further
developed or refined centrally, they can also represent a tremendous
opportunity. The benefits of creating a services development process include:
 Lowering the risk of failure.
 Reducing complexity.
Excerpt: New Service Product Development Decision Model
 Increasing flexibility. Inputs to the Model
Impetus for Capacity and Process and
Type of New Services Technology Competency Infrastructure
Service Development Requirements Requirements Requirements
Outputs from the Model
Speed to Services Definition New Services Product Success
Market and Business Plan Research and Testing Measures
Source: ITSMA, 2010
Read How to Create a Services Development Process.
Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 4

5. 3. Marketers must integrate social media into their overall
marketing mix.
Marketers must stop thinking of social media in isolation and start thinking of
them as additional channels in their overall marketing mix. One critical
component of an integrated strategy is developing a social media
participation strategy. There are three stages of social media participation:
ITSMA’s Social Media Participation Model
Conversation Community
Manage
Engage
Monitor  Create your own channels
for conversation and
 Actively engage in conversation
community (e.g., blogs,
with customers and influencers
 Identify target audience online communities)
in existing forums
 Identify influencers
 Develop a social media
 Listen to and track
participation policy
relevant conversations
 Support SME participants
Passive Active
Source: ITSMA, 2010
Read Avoiding the Social Media Silo: How to Integrate Social Media into Your
Marketing Strategy and How to Fit Social Media into your Overall Marketing Strategy
and Make it Stick.
Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 5

6. 4. Marketers need to properly segment their target
audience and do the research to truly understand it.
In ITSMA’s and RainToday.com’s lead generation benchmarking survey,
our research shows that the high performers are doing a better job at
segmenting and understanding their target markets. They are more
knowledgeable about whom they should be targeting and their target
markets’ industry and business issues compared to the other companies.
Well executed segmentation must be based on deep knowledge of the
target markets, specifically: When marketing and selling your services, how important is market
 The composition of the segmentation to your lead generation programs?
% of Respondents
target markets. 1 = Not at all important
2 = Somewhat unimportant
 The business and 3 = Neither important nor unimportant
company-specific issues 4 = Somewhat important
of the target audiences. 5 = Very important
Note: Mean rating is based on a 5-point scale, where 1=not at all important and 5=very important.
Source: ITSMA and RainToday.com What’s Working in Lead Generation Survey, November 2010
Read Lead Generation Benchmark Report: How the Best Firms Fill the Pipeline, 2010
ITSMA and RainToday.com Lead Generation Survey and Segmentation: A Key to
Successful Lead Generation.
Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 6

7. 5. Marketers can use social media as glue for connecting
events.
Based on ITSMA’s research with IBM Saves Money by Encouraging Participants to Record Their Experiences
B2B services marketers, we’re
seeing companies successfully using
social media to drive more
attendance and interaction at
company events. Social media can
become the glue that binds events
together, driving registration and
discussion prior to events and
enabling conference attendees to
continue the dialogue after or
between events.
Read Avoiding the Social Media Silo: How to Integrate Social Media into Your
Marketing Strategy, ITSMA Online Survey: Integrating Social Media into the Marketing
Mix and the Business, and How to Fit Social Media into your Overall Marketing
Strategy and Make it Stick.
Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 7

8. 6. Cloud computing is changing what and how we market,
as well as the actual sale.
Cloud computing is not a new
disruptive technology, but What is cloud computing?
rather, it is a new disruptive
technology delivery model. Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network
access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks,
This means that services and servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned
and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.
solutions take center stage. This cloud model promotes availability and is composed of five essential
Because of this, marketers characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models.
have to change what they Five Three Four
Essential Characteristics Service Models Deployment Models
market and how they market,  On-demand self-service  Software as a Service  Private cloud
and companies will have to  Broad network access (SaaS)  Community cloud
 Resource pooling  Platform as a Service  Public cloud
look at how they sell.  Rapid elasticity (PaaS)  Hybrid cloud
 Measured Service  Infrastructure as a Service
(IaaS)
 What we market.
 How we market. Source: NIST (National institute of Standards and Technology)
ITSMA Web Briefing | E100510 How Cloud Computing will Change Marketing © 2010 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 3
Read How Cloud Computing will Change Marketing and Featured Research: Marketers
Need to Make Cloud a Priority.
Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 8

9. 7. Marketers can use social media to improve intelligence
gathering.
Social media tools expand the Competipedia Offers Specific Deal Guidance—
possibilities of competitive Not Just Information
intelligence by driving collaboration.
Xerox Global Services used social
media tools and principles to create
Competipedia, a wiki-based tool
where salespeople can go to find
and share competitive intelligence.
But Competipedia doesn’t just
gather and spit out information—it
interprets it. By entering a few key
bits of information into the tool,
salespeople receive dynamic sales
guidance to help them win specific
deals.
Read How Xerox Global Services Used Social Media to Enable Sales and Xerox Global
Services’ Competipedia: Using Social Media to Enable the Sales Force.
Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 9

10. 8. Marketing should use targeted issues, not offerings, to
converse with their audiences.
Customers and influencers are not  Develop a persona of your target
interested in product and service audience and discover what it wants.
pitches—especially in the conversational  Audit existing sources of information to
realm of social media. That’s why Kronos find an area of differentiation.
started a blog, Workforce Institute, which
 Create an advisory board to establish
focuses on business issues in Kronos’
credibility and generate ideas.
core market, workforce management,
rather than on Kronos’ offerings. To help  Monitor the internet for topical issues
ensure success, marketers need to take relevant to your target audience and
a number of other steps including: create posts that speak to them
The Workforce Institute Focuses on Issues Rather Than Offerings
directly.
 Create a layer of separation between
the company and the blog to establish
credibility.
 Develop an internal engine for ideas
and content
Read How to Use Blogging to Reach an Executive-Level Audience and the Case Study.
Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 10

11. 9. Online communities are changing the conversation.
When online communities were outlets for techies and users to build a better
mousetrap, business leaders and marketers yawned. But CSC showed that
communities—when linked to events and process development—could attract
a C-Level audience and should be part of the marketing strategy. Additionally,
ITSMA’s How Customers Choose Solution Providers shows that B2B buyers’
most valuable sources of information are their peers.
When building its online community, IT WikonnecT Lets Participants Choose the Ways That They Want
to Connect with Each Other
services and consulting giant CSC had a
tremendous advantage to draw on. Since
the ’70s, CSC has built the software
platforms that run more than 1,200 financial
services companies around the world. It
used the relationships it had built over
time offline and transferred them online, to
an online community called WikonnecT.
Read How CSC Built the Holy Grail of B2B Social Media and
CSC’s WikonnecT: How to Build a Thriving Social Media Community.
Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 11

12. 10. B2B services marketers need more specific training.
For many years, B2B marketing was seen as the poor relation to B2C. No B2B
marketer needs to be convinced of the intricacies of developing meaningful and
lasting relationships with customers, especially when buying decisions are so
dispersed and achingly long.
But the wider marketing world
has not always understood this.
As our profession has matured,
the need and desire for agreed
standards and approaches have
increased. But while there are many generic marketing certifications, almost all are
focused on B2C. And when B2B is included, it’s usually from a product rather than a
services perspective.
It was this lack of formal standards that stoked up discussion among ITSMA’s
European Advisory Board members last year and led to the development of the joint
ITSMA/Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Professional Diploma in Marketing for
Business Services and Solutions. Our first group of students began their studies
last fall!
Read Finally, Global Certification for B2B Services Marketing.
Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 12

13. About ITSMA
As a membership
organization,
ITSMA brings together
the world’s leading
technology and
professional services
firms to advance the
state of the art in
marketing and selling
services and solutions.
Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 13

14. For More Information
Jeanne Brown
Senior Manager
Member Communications & Community
ITSMA
jbrown@itsma.com
+1-781-862-8500, Ext. 118
Online Library Follow us…
Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 14