What’s nearly five feet long, driven by touch, and kicking up collaboration at McBru? Our new InFocus Mondopad!  And “mondo” it is: a whopping 55-inch, HD resolution, Windows 7 touch-screen PC.  We operate it by touch, keyboard/mouse, and a stylus. It connects to our wireless network so, with its specially ma

If you can’t go big, in customer reference programs, do you go home? This year and last, one of our clients has generously invited me to speak to their annual sales meeting on the topic of customer reference programs. My mission is to evangelize the power of customer references as a core element of highly [...]

You’ve heard of Curata’s “Feeding the Content Beast: The good news and the bad news is that it’s always hungry.” So how do you feed the content beast, and why do we care about that in tech B2B marketing? At McBru we’ve known for years that content marketing is just as important, if not more, [...]

We’re now helping our clients navigate the sometimes choppy waters of a busy tradeshow season toward flawless execution. We find that some of the same questions invariably come up, year after year. Here are five of the most frequently asked: Do we really need to have giveaways at our booth? The short answer is yes! [...]

BtoB Magazine recently covered a case study on an effective tech B2B advertising and lead nurturing campaign for a McBru client, ON Semiconductor. Gary Malmberg, the manager of global advertising and marketing, provided a great quote about how content energizes his advertising and demand generation initiatives. “A lot of

It was once the most august distinction in journalism: the sharp divide between advertising and editorial sides of the business. Articles that appeared as news or under an editorial byline were written without sway from advertisers. News was objective, advertising was promotional, and never the twain met, at least in theory

First impressions count, especially in tech B2B press releases. Yet the headline can often be the most challenging part to write. Your tech B2B company or client may have the most innovative technology product or service, but if you can’t express the excitement and value in a headline, your target audiences will completel

Your tech B2B ad campaign that’s got them clicking in Germany may not have any response in China. Since most B2B ad campaigns span various geographies, we thought it might be helpful to offer up a few insights we’ve learned about localizing your campaign. Review your ad copy – When writing your copy, it’s important

A recent study by IDG Research Services unveils that 95% of B2B tech buyers watch tech-related videos. Two-thirds of them subsequently research the featured product, and almost half go to the vendor’s site for more information. Now that’s pull. Want to make videos that connect with this audience? Here are a few tips fro

To some, the Forbes article “LinkedIn is Preferred by Executives” may sound like news, but not to us. In fact, here’s a link to a book of LinkedIn case studies featuring a McBru project for a tech B2B company – from three years ago! See this new McBru social media case study that shows how [...]

This recent study showed that a statement was considered to be more believable when shown in one typestyle than another. Baskerville, a classic style serif typeface was more believable than the more modern and ubiquitous sans-serif, Helvetica.                                       [...]

To be a killer B2B marketer, you have to be strategic and tactical. A showman and a bean counter. To top it all off, you must bring creative thinking to stay ahead in your rapidly evolving marketplace. So the question is, how do you maximize your creative worker role? McBru wrestles with that week in [...]

McBru is no stranger to tech B2B product launches. In fact, we just helped InFocus roll out the “BigTouch,” a 55-inch all-in-one touch screen PC. To examine all the aspects of great product launches, we’d need a long series of blog posts. For today, I’ll focus on influencer relations, and three keys to m

In tech B2B marketing, LinkedIn Groups are proving to be an effective social platform to reach audiences that thrive on informative data and discussions. If managed well, groups serve as a knowledge base that encourages brand preference and engagement. Groups with clearly defined goals and guardrails designed to foster mind

Many of us have fallen for the coveted “hot” giveaway that we see while attending a trade show. You know the drill; you hunt down the booth and unabashedly take the giveaway. It’s like winning a prize! But as a tech B2B marketer, have you ever wondered if handing out swag is worth it? Trade [...]

I read an interesting post this week by the good folks at MarketingCharts, who have been parsing the 2013 RSW/US Agency-Marketer Business Report and pulling out sections to review and comment on. This week’s topic: the importance of an agency’s strategic insights in an agency selection process.       

What could seem simpler than writing an email? If you’re writing promotional email campaigns for tech B2B clients, there’s actually little that’s simple about creating targeted, attention-catching e-blasts that get results. Here at McBru we manage a number of ongoing email and e-alert programs for our clients, and we�

Oh boy, my data senses are tingling! According to a post in AdWeek, both Twitter and Pinterest have recently upped their analytics reporting. For a while now, the B2B tech marketing community has been tentatively dipping our toes in social media platforms – trying to find meaningful data points to bring back to our client

Your success as a BtoB marketer depends on effective business relationships: with your peers, agencies, event producers and even your top customers. Do you have all the skills you need to keep those relationships on the right path? Like all McBru staff, I read the book called Crucial Conversations. – Tools for talking whe

By now, we are aware that mobile as a marketing platform continues to gain traction. However, as with any evolving medium, there are still challenges that need to be addressed and overcome by B2B marketers. A recent survey by Forrester Research and Aquent revealed that 42% of survey respondents claimed measurement/ROI of mo

One of the keys to success in a tech B2B marketing project doesn’t happen during the course of the project, but actually before the project ever starts. Project initiation documents give your team all the information they need to do the job efficiently and with vision. These documents literally start everyone on the same

According to the recently published study “Social Media and the Inc. 500” by UMass at Dartmouth, LinkedIn is now the top social media marketing channel among the fastest-growing private companies in the US. Eighty-one percent of study respondents now include LinkedIn in their marketing mix, up from 73 percent the year p

I love reading articles by other IR professionals, because they illustrate how like-minded individuals in this field are and how many woes we share, whether you’re in tech B2B or another area of focus. On Monday, PR News posted an article titled, “Biggest Take for PR Execs who Tuned into the Oscars.” The Oscars, a

Infographics have become a very popular marketing tool to visualize data. What many infographics lack is original and interesting data and insights. In this post I’ll outline a relatively simple way to gather great data for use in an infographic. First, determine the topic(s) and the kind of data and insights that will be

Tech B2B marketers have long wrestled with a paradox: techies hate marketing, yet they are constantly on the prowl for fresh information to help them do their jobs better. The trick to engaging with these highly educated, skeptical audiences has always been the same: be in the right place at the right time with the [...]

Here at McBru, we are in the home stretch of our corporate rebrand. One of the key pieces of the rebrand is our new website. Right from the beginning we decided to pursue a “responsive” design. Responsive web design adapts the content and display of information for the device it is viewed on. Using media [...]

We see companies doing b2b communications a lot of different ways. There might not be one “right” way to do things, but after 20 years of successes, McBru has defined a set of best practices for each of our integrated disciplines. Below are five tips from our best practices playbook to consider when planning a [...]

According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing remains a focus for tech B2B marketers in 2013. Effective content marketing engages a skeptical technology audience without pitching or selling. In addition, content marketing delivers information over the course of long sales cycle to help the audience underst

By Janel Pettit, McClenahan Bruer Social Media Specialist Is Twitter an effective social media tool for driving traffic toward a purchasing decision? A January 2013 joint Small Business CEO Survey between the Wall Street Journal and Vistage Leadership Group reported that only three percent of U.S. CEOs think Twitter has the

Every now and then, tech B2B companies need to ask if their brands are still effective in the marketplace: effective in communicating value to clients and customers; and effective in capturing the essence of the company. In short, does the brand walk the talk? As Kerry discussed in Tuesday’s post, McBru recently turned it