It’s with pleasure that I invite you to a breakfast seminar held by the Association des professionnels de la communication et du marketing (APCM), or in English the Association of Communication and Marketing Professionals, on Friday, October 26, 2012, entitled “Marketing Solutions: an integrated perspective from a B2B company in Montreal.”
During the first part of the conference, I will be presenting our integrated marketing model, its advantages, and factors of success.
Integrated marketing: it’s fundamental
Things are finally starting to fall into place in Quebec B2B marketing! Yes, there are social networks, mobile phones, tablets and more. There is also no lack of technological solutions for social media, CRMs and inbound and outbound marketing. And yes, for decades we’ve been talking about communication and marketing on one hand, and sales on the other, but rarely have we talked about the integration of both. The sales and marketing departments work mostly alone or collaborate superficially for several reasons, both good and bad.
Nevertheless, these departments have common goals: performance and success. Sales and marketing don’t agree on how to proceed, blame each other and have different points of view. So it can become difficult to integrate! Even with the right tools.
The reality of B2B companies is very different from that of B2C companies. For example, the nature of products and services as well as financial, technological, and utilisation risks are often more important in B2B and impose a buying (and sales) cycle that is more complex (because the products and services in B2B are also more complex).
Concerning performance and optimisation objectives, marketing integration should be done on several dimensions, but sales and marketing integration is the most urgent. Generating prospects is great but if sales and marketing don’t “live” together, there is a significant loss in efficiency measured in the expenses of both operations.
I would enjoy discussing this with you during APCM’s breakfast seminar. For more information or to register, please consult their website. To know more about our other events, please go to our Events page.
