SES Hong Kong – A Late Recap (Day 2)

 Previously – Recap of Day 1

Keynote Panel on B2B Lead Generation

Moderator: Eddie Choi, SES Advisory Board & Managing Director of Frontiers Digital and panelists, Linda Kozlowski, Director of Global Marketing at Alibaba, Marcelo Wesseler, Head of E-Commerce Asia at RS-Component, and Peter Zapf, Chief Operating Officer of Global Sources

B2B marketers in China act and behave differently than the US and other western marketers. They use email and display advertising for brand marketing rather than lead generation. When East meets West in B2B marketing, there is always an interesting contrast in marketing application and practice. The panel showed the different marketing objectives of the supply and demand sides and looked at the differences between western and China B2B marketers.

Topics covered included:

• Effective lead generation tactics
• How an effective marketing mix should be developed for lead generation?
• How social media should play a role when it is integrated with search for converting leads into opportunities?

Excerpts From @B2Bento (Twitter)

1. Emotional B2B marketing for small and medium size companies ~ Linda (Alibaba)
2. Alibaba’s social media usage is mainly focussed on customer service and retention rather than lead generation.
3. Globalsources created a virtual trade show online to extend the marketplace to a wider audience
4. B2B marketing is like having a good wife, looks sexy, takes care of kids and efficient”
5. I hate our offline brand advertising, like taxi and newspaper ads, as I can’t measure them. I’ve no choice” -Peter

Excerpts from Linda Kozlowski, Alibaba

Linda talked about how Alibaba practices emotional B2B Marketing to connect with their SMB clients.This is in line with Alibaba’s focus on target marketing and direct conversion to ‘user’ rather than establishing a lead generation pipeline. Alibaba rounds off their approach by using social media as a customer retention and servicing platform instead of focusing on growing direct leads.

Excerpts from Marcelo Wesseler, RS Components

Marcelo spoke about how RS Components is positioning digital marketing channels, including social media as a growth driver, rather than replacement of traditional marketing. In this scenario the first traffic source is more important than the last click for conversion hence their necessity to use multichannel measurement.

Globalized Marketing in a Digital World

by Crispin Sheridan, SES Advisory Board & Sr Director of Search Marketing Strategy, SAP

Crispin’s session focused on the fundamentals of going global with emphasis on understanding the opportunities as well as the inherent complexities in conducting an international business. He addressed the topic of picking target markets, understanding opportunities in new markets, dealing with logistical and cultural issues, and measuring and monitoring performance.

Crispin advises brands to be careful about cultural differences in various factors such as colors which signify different emotions in different cultural contexts. It is also not enough to provide translations of your content for different markets as localization of content goes beyond translating content from one language to another. Usability metrics also vary by country and culture so one size definitely does not fit all.