B2B Marketers: Media Companies Need a Seat in Your Ecosystem

We’ve spent time in our blog posts looking at different ways that marketers can build networks, communities, advisory boards and ecosystems to drive change and enable new customer engagement models. Marketers have always worked with media, but the role of media companies – and that of others – should be reconsidered as columnist Scott Vaughan indicates in his article, “From leads to data: how changes in the media business affect B2B marketers.”

As Vaughan points out, media companies are making a significant shift in their business models as they start to build richer data troves of customer information and establish better engagement models. This moves beyond the sharing of leads with marketers to media outlets analyzing who from each company (beyond the lead) is downloading what types of content at what frequency, etc.

This example points to a larger strategic opportunity for CMOs and marketing leadership—broaden the lens of ecosystem players that you engage and to look beyond the traditional roles held. We live in a world that is too fast and too large for any one company to go it alone. As marketers, we have to think about the assets needed to move our business forward and then consider the companies that hold those assets. And it is important to remember that no business is sitting still – media companies are more than just media companies and many others are branching beyond traditional models.

Building out compelling ecosystems that bring strong reciprocal value to all entities is critical to the future of your business and to how customers and future partners will perceive you. As you think about the ecosystem you may build and the opportunities it could enable, consider convening some of those players together to advise you and each other. We’ve found that the best ideas often emerge from this kind of meeting—and provide new thinking on how to move your business forward.