Happy New Year! First, let me congratulate anyone who managed to keep their New Year’s Resolution until now. Keeping a resolution is difficult, and if it involves being healthier, then you probably won’t make it through the College Bowl Games, and definitely not past the Super Bowl.

As the first official b2bFishbowl post of 2010, I felt added pressure to kick off the year with profound advice that can be applied to your B2B marketing efforts (and maybe your personal lives). I’ll keep it simple for those working off a post-holiday hangover. Your one marketing challenge in 2010 is this:

Decide how you want to define yourself and aspire to be that every day.

Spend time to determine how your brand, products and services are defined for your target audiences. Then, each day, follow through to make sure the marketing communications you execute live up to that definition. Give your company appeal and purpose in the markets you serve. If you do it right, you’re sure to make your life as a B2B marketer a lot easier, and you’ll create strong relationships with customers and prospects in the process.

And, like other resolutions, if you begin to struggle or feel yourself straying from your goal, lean on others for support.

What is your New Year’s resolution? Do you have a B2B MarComm mantra that you are determined to follow in 2010?

Time has whooshed past us once again, but that’s okay because I’ve been having the time of my life keeping up with all the new gadgets that are supposed to help me manage my time and give me time to catch my breath.

It’s high time that we all take a little time to notice that every time we turn around there’s another time-saving device that’s designed to give us more spare time or help us make up for lost time.

My iPhone “clock” app is a good example. With just a touch, it gives me the time of day in every corner of the world. It also provides a timer to let me know when it’s time for my downtime. There’s a handy stopwatch for the race against time, and an alarm that wakes me in the nick of time with a melodic marimba chime.

As time goes by, however, I’ve concluded that many times these techno time savers actually just kill time because they take up all of my spare time. Turns out staying ahead of time actually takes time! And, as the saying goes, “time is money.” So, time’s up!

Is it already 2010? Which time-saving gadgets are your faves? How many uses of the word “time” have I taken time to include in this 221-word blog post?

One of the most challenging parts of working in marketing is figuring out what exactly your customers want. Well fret no longer and take solace in my words when I say that there are ways of unearthing those innovative ideas that will tickle your customers’ fancy. The answer, my friends, lies in crowdsourcing.

Rather than spending countless hours (and most of your marketing dollars) researching your target audience, why not ask them? I can’t think of a better way of getting inside consumers’ minds than to let them tell you what they are thinking.

Take Starbucks for example. Starbucks utilizes crowdsourcing to perfection with its Web site, MyStarbucksIdea.com. On this site, registered users can log in, share ideas, view other ideas and see what sort of improvements are in the works. What a great way to connect with consumers and empower them to help craft the future of the company. Talk about creating brand loyalty.  And the best part is that it’s free!

So the next time you are banging your head on your desk in frustration because you can’t seem to figure out what your customers want, just ask them. For B2C and B2B marketing alike, effective communication depends on how well you can satisfy your customers’ needs.

Have you encountered any great crowdsourcing techniques?

Going through the car buying process recently, I realized that purchasing an automobile or a house is about as close to a B2B purchase as a consumer can get. This is because:

1. It’s a high-priced item that you will have to live with for at least a few years
2. You have to gather a tremendous amount of information to make an informed decision
3. There’s a longer sales cycle than most consumer purchases

But it doesn’t end there. The old and new ways of car buying are similar to changes in B2B too. A few years ago, you would stumble onto a car lot, drive a few vehicles, haggle with the sales rep, spend a bunch of time in the finance department and drive off in your new vehicle, hoping you got a good deal.

Now, you go online to research vehicle information and read reviews, visit a bunch of dealer Web sites and get several competitive quotes, do all of your negotiations via e-mail and simply show up to the lot to pick up the car.

This mirrors the B2B selling process where a lot of the research, information gathering and negotiations are being done electronically, which makes it critical for your B2B company to have a proliferation of information on the Web that is optimized for search engines.

Have you changed your online B2B marketing strategies to match the way your customers are searching for information online? Do you have meaty content online that enable your customers to find you? Do you have a car buying horror story to share?