Business-to-Business Key Findings – May/June 2010

B2B and B2C E-Mail Tactics for B2B and B2C Companies

While business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) e-mail marketers have different targets, they do agree on the effectiveness of several e-mail tactics.

For example, both groups consider identifying the best time to send messages as their most effective e-mail marketing approach. They also agree it’s key to include marketing promotions in transactional messages and like to use surveys to gather information about their recipients.

While both groups expressed about equal interest in upselling and cross-selling, increasing contact databases and strengthening their analytics, there were also significant differences in their goals. B2B marketers were highly focused on moving prospects through the sales pipeline, whereas B2C respondents wanted to increase customer loyalty. This explains why B2C marketers found customer loyalty strategies – such as incorporating social network links – more valuable than B2B respondents.

The following chart shows the importance each group gave to a variety of tactics.

Corporate Social Media Policies

Many IT professionals are wary of social media usage in the workplace, both because they believe it hampers productivity and might compromise security. According to nCircle, about 60% of US businesses’ security and IT professionals say their company has a social media policy, and 39% ban all usage of social media on the job.

Almost one-quarter of Facebook users (23.4%) surveyed by F-Secure said they used the site “all the time” while at work, and even more had friended their boss. Another 35% visited Facebook occasionally on the job. Just 14.3% of respondents said their company did not allow access—much lower than the 39% of companies in the nCircle survey that reported bans.

Interestingly, almost one-half of the IT professionals polled by nCircle admitted they were not sure if their companies’ employees adhered to the rules in place.

Health As Corporate Responsibility

An Edelman study which surveyed 15,000 people in 11 countries shows that health is emerging as a major corporate responsibility issue for companies of all kinds. Of those surveyed, 69% said that “business should be as engaged in maintaining and improving personal and public health as it is in maintaining and improving the environment.”

Survey respondents said they would be more willing to trust, do business with and even invest in companies that are engaged in health issues. Examples include making available products that promote health, communicating the health risks of their products, helping their workers become healthier, helping address obesity or contributing to global health.

Bullets

• Out of the 53% of workers who have had a crush on a co-worker, only 36% had an office romance. Some 73% of workers say that a workplace romance jeopardizes one’s opportunities for advancement.
• Two-thirds of mobile phone owners say they are interested in having a navigation application on their device that provides directions for both driving and walking.
• According to the Kauffman Foundation, the top-performing 1% of companies in a year account for some 40% of new jobs. Within that category, fast-growing “gazelle” companies (3 to 5 years old) make up less than 1% of all businesses, yet account for approximately 10% of net new jobs per year.

Read all bullets.