Christopher Ryan
CustomerThink
Colorado Springs, CO, United States
Contact Christopher
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Past articles by Christopher:
Bravery: An Underrated Virtue for Chief Marketing Officers
Adobe Stock My last CustomerThink column was B2B Marketing’s Role in Driving Revenue With Integrity. I’m not surprised that it received a ton of views because the subject of integrity resonates with both marketers and the CEOs they work for. The same is true for another essential CMO trait, bravery. In fact, without the attribute of bravery, it can be very difficult to enforce company integrity.… → Read More
B2B Marketing Options – When to DIY and When to Outsource
As the CEO of a B2B marketing and revenue growth outsource provider, you would think that I would always suggest outsourcing as the best way to handle your marketing. However, as with much else in life, the answer to the question of Should I outsource my marketing or do it myself? is “it depends.” This is especially true in light of the fact that we are now in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis,… → Read More
The Upside of Marketing in a Down Economy
Yes, it’s tough out there. As I write this, we are all faced with the specter of the invisible coronavirus bug attacking our health, threatening our own lives and that of our family and friends, and doing serious, and potentially long-term damage to our financial well-being. We are all getting tired of talking about what we are doing to amuse ourselves indoors and lamenting the declining… → Read More
Content Marketing – Quality vs. Quantity
Let’s face it – there are days when the creative well is dry and you would rather go to the dentist than write some fresh content for social media or your website. After all, if you can’t create outstanding content, why do it at all? You may be tempted to chuck the whole thing and go back to doing something more fun – like filling out expense reports (just kidding on this one!). I promise that… → Read More
Align Marketing and Sales to Streamline the Buying Experience: 4 Imperatives
Source: Adobe StockIn Deloitte: The Future of B2B Sales is “Experience Selling, Bob Thompson relates a discussion he had with Harry Datwani, a Principal at Deloitte Digital about his company’s research on the B2B buying experience. According to Datwani, the study was conducted because the B2B buying process is changing rapidly — driven by customers/buyers. The report notes that “B2B buyers are… → Read More
Full Potential B2B Marketing
The beginning of a new year is always a great time to evaluate the results of the previous year and plan for more success in the coming year. All of us want to achieve our full potential, for both ourselves and our organizations. Yet, many of us don’t reach even a fraction of what we can achieve from a marketing standpoint. So what is “full potential marketing” and how do you make it part of… → Read More
How to Use Pricing as a Competitive Advantage: 5 Strategies
Source: Adobe Stock Properly pricing products and services is always something of a challenge because it seems that everyone has a different view on the matter. Also, good pricing is both an art and a science which means that different personalities approach the topic entirely differently. Executive A picks a number out of his/her head, proclaiming, “This is the most customers will pay.”… → Read More
In B2B Marketing, it’s Better to Act than Wait
Why you need to be a “pipe”, not a “bucket” marketer. B2B marketers seem to come in two varieties; those with a propensity to act, and those with a propensity to ponder. The former usually have a much higher output than the latter. And yes, they also make more mistakes (guilty as charged here!). On the flip side, they also learn more and produce much greater results. I think of failure to act as… → Read More
Are You Wasting Time and Money on Content Marketing?
As an avid practitioner of content marketing, both for our clients and my own company, I’ve heard (and expressed) a lot of opinions and comments about content marketing, ranging from: > “It doesn’t work, so why the heck are we doing it?” “I think it might help us, but we have no way of measuring results.” “Even if it does work, is content marketing the best use of our resources?” “We need… → Read More
Are You a Branded Authority or One of the Crowd?
Two weeks ago, I presented a BrightTALK webinar on behalf of the Sales Expert Channel, titled Branding and Positioning for Marketplace Leadership. You can listen to the replay here. I talked a lot about the importance of companies having a compelling and differentiated brand. Many are not aware that the exact same principles apply to you and other company executives. Marketing and selling is way… → Read More
Are You Wasting Time and Money on Content Marketing?
Source: Adobe Stock As an avid practitioner of content marketing, both for our clients and my own company, I’ve heard (and expressed) a lot of opinions and comments about content marketing, ranging from: > “It doesn’t work, so why the heck are we doing it?” “I think it might help us, but we have no way of measuring results.” “Even if it does work, is content marketing the best use of our… → Read More
B2B Marketing and Sales Lessons Learned in the Trenches
One of the advantages of a long career in any discipline is the ability to look back and see lessons learned over many companies, initiatives and projects. This is why you want to hear your surgeon say that this is their 400th similar procedure, and not: I just graduated and this is my first procedure. When it comes to B2B marketing and sales, here are six lessons that have served me well.… → Read More
Are You a Demand Creator or Demand Fulfiller?
Is the primary purpose of your company and its products and/or services to create demand or fulfill demand? Perhaps you have never been asked this question. Perhaps your answer is: “I’m not sure.” In either case, let’s fix this, shall we? To be successful, demand creators should have a different marketing and sales strategy than demand fulfillers and when you finally align your people, processes… → Read More
Six Ways to Make Your Company More Valuable in 2019
Source: Adobe Stock Welcome to a new year full of potential and promise. Before we get too deep into the year, why not take one or more actions that can propel your company to new heights? It’s not just about marketing and selling better, or about creating a better customer experience (CX). You have been doing these things for some time, so why not try something a little bolder this year? Here… → Read More
Six Ways to Make Your Company More Valuable in 2019
Source: Adobe Stock Welcome to a new year full of potential and promise. Before we get too deep into the year, why not take one or more actions that can propel your company to new heights? It’s not just about marketing and selling better, or about creating a better customer experience (CX). You have been doing these things for some time, so why not try something a little bolder this year? Here… → Read More
Are You Ready for the New Year: Critical Marketing and Sales Planning Questions
As a marketing/sales leader or company executive, you probably don’t have the luxury of divorcing your mind from business during the holiday period. You know that 2019 will be here in a flash and you need to take steps to ensure that you enter the new year primed for focused activity and optimized results. Following are nine important questions to help you get your marketing and sales planning… → Read More
B2B Product Differentiation Strategies – The Value Hierarchy
Cure Underperformance and Build Value by Traversing the Business Value Hierarchy Why Review Your Value Hierarchy? It is time to analyze your position in the Value Hierarchy when you have: * Customer pressure to discount pricing * Lower sales-close rates * Higher lead costs * Eroding market share If your company is struggling to differentiate products and services to improve its value to… → Read More
Agile Marketing: Five Tips To Do It Right
Agile marketing makes marketing departments more effective by using agile software principles that allow marketers to move faster in response to customer-centric needs. Agile marketers work in sprints — focused, one- to two-week projects — under a scrum master in cross-functional teams. In our practice, we have found the fail-test-succeed iterative nature of agile to be extremely helpful in… → Read More
The Right Diagnosis is Crucial for Marketing and CX Improvement
Source: Adobe Stock A B2B software client was facing declining quarter-over-quarter sales. Their answer was to hire two additional sales reps. Unfortunately, the new reps were expensive and did not get the revenue back on track. After an analysis of the competitive landscape, we diagnosed the issue as a packaging and delivery problem. The company was selling permanent licenses while most of the… → Read More
The Right Diagnosis is Crucial for Marketing and CX Improvement
Source: Adobe Stock A B2B software client was facing declining quarter-over-quarter sales. Their answer was to hire two additional sales reps. Unfortunately, the new reps were expensive and did not get the revenue back on track. After an analysis of the competitive landscape, we diagnosed the issue as a packaging and delivery problem. The company was selling permanent licenses while most of the… → Read More