Social Media Portal interview with Saba Hudson from B2B Marketing
Social Media Portal (SMP) profiled interview with Saba Hudson event manager at B2B Marketing
Social Media Portal (SMP): What do you do there at B2B Marketing (and for the B2B Marketing training)? Saba Hudson (SH): I?m Saba Hudson and I'm the Events Manager for
B2B Marketing. I manage the entire portfolio of events that B2B Marketing run. This includes the monthly online workshops, the Annual Conference, the B2B Marketing Summit, the Awards Showcase and Shortlist events and last but by no means least, the B2B Marketing Awards themselves!
SMP: Briefly, tell us about B2B Marketing training, when are they scheduled? SH: We schedule one online training workshop a month. The upcoming workshops are a series of 90-minute online master classes, each useful in their own right, but particularly powerful if attended as a series. They build to map marketing against the way that real business buyers really buy things, so that you can plan, execute, and measure marketing right through to a sales outcome.
SMP: Who are your target audience and why (and who should sign up to listen)?SH: These online sessions are suitable for people who are responsible to putting together, and justifying, a marketing strategy for their business. It is particularly relevant to marketers who directly support a sales team, or whose organisations are heavily sales driven. Marketing Directors, Heads of Marketing, Marketing Managers, Sales & Marketing Directors and business owners. Attending these sessions will equip you to assess, select and justify your an integrated marketing activity plan that will deliver sales results.
SMP: Why has B2B Marketing started the training, and how long have they been going?
SH: B2B Marketing?s online training workshops started in February this year. We wanted to offer another solution for those marketers who were in need of in-depth learning on a specific marketing channel but didn?t have the time to leave their desks.
SMP: What is B2B Marketing training doing that?s different?SH: We use industry renowned trainers to speak at our events and all our courses are geared around practical, hands-on learning. We only reference B2B case studies and often the clients involved in the campaigns speak alongside the agency representative.
SMP: What will be the highlights of the training?SB: The highlight of the upcoming workshops is the fact that you can create a unique and highly visual framework to help you understand and plan your marketing activity to support sales results, which you can then use to get the internal support you need to make it happen. Across the four sessions, you will achieve the following:
- Clear understanding of the steps in a considered purchase
- Template social media activity plan that supports the sales pipeline
- Clear rationale for selecting and investing in social media
- Powerful technique for visualising your expenditure against the sales pipeline
- Three-level approach to strategic budget setting
- Practical method for setting and spending a contingency budget
- Clearer understanding of how marketing is perceived by other disciplines and why
- Guidance on your use of language and marketing metrics
- Framework for presenting all marketing proposals within a sales-driven rationale
- Plan for shifting perceptions of marketing in your business
SMP: How do you select your hosts and specialists for the training? SH: We have a long standing relationship with our trainers, almost all of whom are published authors or veteran speakers. They have all spoken at our events in the past and received excellent feedback which is why we use them over and over again.
SMP: How are you attracting and attendees to the training?
SH: We?re talking to them through all the regular means of communication, including B2B Marketing magazine, DM, telemarketing, email and social.
SMP: What are the most important things that attendees can take away from training?SH: A unique and highly visual framework to help you understand and plan your marketing activity to support sales results, which you can then use to get the internal support you need to make it happen.
SMP: What are the low moments of what you have been doing so far (and regarding the training)?SH: None so far. I have really enjoyed putting the material together and I?m excited to get it out there for people to put into practice in their businesses.
SMP: What are the high moments of what you have been doing so far (and regarding the training)?SH: Seeing all the bookings come in!! The online training workshops are fairly new for us and it?s nice to see members responding well to it.
SMP: If we?ve missed the training, is there any way we can still catch up? SH: The workshops are very popular and we try to repeat the course twice within one calendar year.
SMP: Is there anything else we should know about the training?
SH: The first 10 people to register for each event will be put on the waiting list to receive a free, signed, copy of Bryony?s book, Watertight Marketing, due out later this year.
SMP: Is there anything else you?d like to share with us? SH: We try to make the online training as useful as possible with the trainer gathering as much information about the delegates partaking before the training takes place. This means the course is tailored to the specific business pain-points outlined.
SMP: Best way to contact you?Email: saba.hudson @ b2bmarketing.net
Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/MarketingB2BNow some questions for fun
SMP: What did you have for breakfast and lunch? SH: Nothing for breakfast but a huge bowl of spaghetti bolognaise for lunch!
SMP: What?s the last good thing that you did for someone? SH: My friend recently moved to Berlin and was feeling a bit homesick so I sent her letter and a present.
SMP: If you weren?t running or working on the B2B Marketing training (or doing what you do) what would you be doing? SH: Travelling the world!
SMP: When and where did you go on your last holiday? SH: I went to Berlin in May to see my friend who had recently moved there
SMP: What?s the first thing you do when you get into the office of a morning? SH: Check my emails and make a cup of tea
SMP: If you had a superpower what would it be and why? SH: The power to control time
SMP: One of your favourite brands using social media? SH: ASOS ? you get loads of good deals if you follow them on twitter!!
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