Should B2B marketers blog?

I spent a great day down in Manhattan as part of Xerox's 2006 Industry Analyst Briefing.  I'd love to blog about it, but sometimes it's tough to separate what's OTR and what's not - so I'll talk about some of the ideas that I got from being there.

Xerox is moving aggressively beyond their roots as a copier company.  As a marketing analyst, it was interesting to hear about the steps Xerox is taking to connect with its customers - mostly B2B enterprises.  One step was to launch a blog, called "Big I, little t".  I think Unica's taking a nice step forward here as well to engage their customers in a more direct conversation.

But do emerging social computing technologies like blogs and podcasting have a place in the B2B marketing world?  Aren't they really tools to connect with individuals in the MySpace generation, rather than the players in a procurement process?

Some data to consider:  last month, Forrester's B2B analyst Laura Ramos published data about B2B marketing challenges - 54% of survey respondents cited "reaching decision-makers" as their most common challenge.  The most often used marketing tactic?  Trade shows, at 91%.

Seems like a disconnect - and missed opportunity - to me...what do you think?

Comments

[Paul Gibler]

I liked Laura's posting on the Forrester Marketing blog http://blogs.forrester.com/marketing/2006/09/should_b2b_mark.html that referenced the questions that B2B marketers should ask before launching a blog. I believe that it depends on the nature of the business, the resources that are avaialable and the level of commitment that the business is willing to put into this and/or other social computing tools.

You might also find my article "Cutting through the Blog Fog" http://wistechnology.com/article.php?id=3210 on Wisconsin Technology Networks of interest for additional insights on the status of business blogging and steps to take in setting up a blog.

[Carol]

For more on this topic you might also want to visit:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/6195100

[Ian Harkins]

I came across a very good podcast series on this at http://www.b2bmarketingpodcast.com where the senior VPs of marketing of many of the world's leading b2b brands are discussing their views on Web 2.0. Sun's Ingrid Van Den Hoogen and SAP's Steve Mann both discuss blogging at some length and I would imagine other's will in the series too, because the interviewer seems to see blogging as at least as important as other Web 2.0 formats.