This legendary B2B ad is from a time when women were apron-wearing housewives, men smoked pipes and wore suspenders and the web was the domain of the 8-legged variety; however,it's still just as relevant today.

Despite the many changes over the last 60 years, the basics of buying remain the same. The product is still only part of the picture. Buyers still gravitate towards familiar brands with personalities that they can identify with.

Create a brand that answers these timeless questions and you'll create customers at the same time.

This famous McGraw-Hill print advert was written by John Peebles, Creative Director at Adler Boschetto Peebles and Partners. Itfirst ran in Business Week in 1958, and it was named one of the 10 best ads of that year.

What's your favourite B2B ad?

If you’re trying to navigate social media for your business, you’ve probably already discovered just how brutally some brands can crash and burn while others claim hoards of followers hanging, seemingly,off their every word.

Fast Company created this great infographic with all kinds of nuggets of wisdom, juicy ideas and good ol’ fashioned common sense to help steer brands straight.

Which “rule” is your favourite?

The latest research is reinforcing what your gut has been telling you: make sure your business’ website is compatible with mobile devices — or lose customers.

Here are a few highlights from a recent survey done for Google by two independent market research firms, Stirling Research and SmithGeiger, What Users Want from Mobile Sites Today.

If these 5 facts don’t make you mobile, nothing will:
74% say they’re more likely to return to a site if it’s mobile friendly
48% said that if a site didn’t work well on their smartphone, they felt like the company didn’t care about their business
52% said a bad mobile experience made them less likely to engage with a company
67% of mobile users say they’re more likely to buy products and services from a mobile-friendly site
61% said if they didn’t find what they were looking for right away on a mobile site they’d quickly move on to another site
The upshot: delay your move to mobile and risk damaging your brand.

We strip business B2B buyers down to their bare naked psyche in the following presentation. Take a peek and find out what really turns your buyers on.

As changes in media accelerate, blogger and multi-expert Chris Brogan sees 7 basic ways it will pan out. It’s going to be an exciting time for communication!

Before you take the web by storm with the 3 strategies outlined below, you need to clarify your goals. Do you want to increase sales? Reduce staffing costs? Improve your service?

Once you’ve decided what you want to achieve, don’t skimp on your investment. You need more than a little pocket change to develop an effective website – but by following thesethree tactics, you can ensure that it’s money well spent.

Attract

It’s a big wide web out there and it’s extremely unlikely that potential customers will stumble across you accidentally, unless you put some work in.

In order tomake yourself easily searchable, you need to know how your customers are searching and target them within that realm. Bear in mind, there has been a major shift away from traditional search en gine queries in favour of more specific searches within business directories, forums, blogs and social media.

• Know your target market, their needs, and their behaviour online.
• Optimise your website and submit an XML sitemap to all the major search engines.
• List your website in local and national directories, and other directories that are
  relevant to your industry.
• Create profiles on social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter,
  and post comments and interact with your customers on a daily basis.
• Send press releases and articles to popular industry blogs and relevant
  online magazines.

Convert

By strategically designing your website to capture leads and drive sales, you can convert as many visitors as possible into customers.

• Make sure each page of your site has a clear call to action.
• Create incentives to collect data. For example, offer a free webinar in exchange for
  contact information.
• Make your site as user-friendly and readable as possible. This includes liberal use of
  white space (no cramming!), short and concise copy, and relevant information that’s
  easy to locate.
• Provide all the content a potential customer requires to make an informed
  purchase decision.

Nurture

Just like in the real world, online business is all about relationships. Every step of the way — before, during and after the sale — you have the opportunity to nurture your relationship with your customers. The best way to build loyalty and trust is by interacting with your online audience as much as possible.

• Respond to all feedback — positive and negative.
• Use community forums and social media sites to interact with both prospects and
  existing customers.
• Provide resources and testimonials that add value and authenticity to your offering.
• Develop a rewards program to generate referrals and leads.
• Stay top of mind with existing and prospective customers by creating an
  e-newsletter with promotions and tips. Hey look at that, you’ve just been nurtured!

Selling more to your existing customers is easier and cheaper than finding and selling to new ones. It coststhree to fivetimes as much to acquire a new customer as it does to keep a current one.

Yet many B2B brands are leaking customers because retention is overshadowed by advertising for new ones. C’mon, when was the last time you read an article about retention?

B2B buyers have a lot on their shoulders. Making an unwise decision not only costs their company, it can cost their job. They have to deal with layers of bureaucracy, they have to be able to justify their decisions, and they often have multiple people to answer to. If you want to keep them buying from you, keeping them happy is essential.

You may think your customers are satisfied, but according to Bloomberg Businessweek, “60% of defecting customers describe themselves as ‘very satisfied’ just before they leave” (October 2009).

In B2C, customer satisfaction surveys are an effective tool for gauging and maintaining retention. However, as always, B2B is a whole different kettle of fish. The people taking your surveys are most likely end users, not key decision makers. It’s extremely rare for a B2B survey to reach even 20 percentof decision makers.

Your challenge is to engage the decision makers and find out what they’re thinking. There are a number of ways you can make sure you’re talking to the right people: holding events, a thorough online search utilising sites like LinkedIn, and of course an accurate data base.

Now that you have the right contact, make sure to ask them the right questions. Never just ask them if they’re satisfied. For one, busy people tend to say they’re satisfied — even when they’re not — if they think that’s the quick and easy option. Two, loyal customers – the ones who’ll recommend you to friends and colleagues – are not satisfied, they’re passionate. Three, for feedback you can work with, you need insight.

Find out their motivations, values and priorities. Many B2B brands mistakenly believe customers are paying for expertise. In reality, most customers have no way to evaluate expertise – what matters to them are the outcomes of their experiences with you. Find out if they’re receiving consistent levels of service and reliability from your brand. These are the things that will make your buyers stick by you.These days,being good isn’t good enough. Outstanding is the new good.

See why marketing expert Josh Bernoff is adamant CEOs should hand the power to their employees and use their customers as their mouthpiece.

Just because B2B buyers are decked out in neckties and dress socks doesn't mean they want to deal with a humourless automaton.

Your B2B buyers are cynical, jaded, over it.

They can see through advertising that talks down to them, and they're bored by your corporababble. So what's a brand to do?

Be human.

It's been well-documented for eons that people are naturally attracted and more loyal to brands with human qualities and distinctive personalities. We see it work in consumer advertising all the time. Yet B2B buyers are consistently treated like automatons by businesses acting like automatons. Business buyers are just as human as consumers. Be human in your interactions with them, they'll love you for it.

Kill the corporababble

Corporate jargon is an excellent way to alienate people. Instantly, it seems like you're more interested in yourself than your buyer. Sure it may seem like you understand your business, but why do your buyers care about that? They want you to understand their business and their needs.

Cut the crap

B2B buyers are not idiots. If they've heard your line before how can you expect them to trust you, let alone like you? Over-claiming may clinch the sale, but you can bet the word will spread, and it will cost you your reputation.

Treat your buyers the way you'd like to be treated, with respect. And if you make a mistake, own it.

Don't be afraid to open up

For a digital space, a lot of emotion is conveyed via the web. Social media has changed the way we all think, it's brought out the voyeur in us, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down. People are hungry for transparency. And that goes for business buyers too.