Better Marketing Through Common Sense

After almost 30 years in marketing, marketing strategy, and planning, I still find the discipline fascinating. The most interesting area for me is still business-to-business marketing (B2B), and the ways in which it can still be so different from consumer marketing. Sure, many of the tools are the same, but they are used quite differently. In my mind, the magnitude of the Internet's effect has been bigger in B2B, though its effect on consumer marketing is quite clear, and I would suggest, more predictable.

“Industrial marketing” was what B2B marketing was called when I was majoring in marketing in the late 1970s (I had thankfully changed my major from accounting in sophomore year; I did well at it but it wasn't for me). I didn't really understand B2B marketing until I received some job advice from the dean of Manhattan College, Dr. Bob Vizza, who was active in the academic study of the area and was also active in the Sales Executives Club of New York. Vizza had also written extensively on sales forecasting (detect a pattern in Dr. Joe's career here?), sales territory management and design, and sales training. His studies from more than 35 years ago are still cited in academic journals and articles. When I was teaching marketing on undergraduate and graduate levels, it was pretty clear that B2B got short shrift in the marketing textbooks that were so enamored with consumer marketing. It's not hard to see why: students are consumers, and they will identify more with lessons from consumer goods that they or their families use, or at least see in the media. There is the practical matter of having to do what works with your audience.