"B2B marketing is harder than B2C marketing," says Kyle Flaherty at the Dance With Strangers blog. Why? Because "B2B marketing is really B2C2C2C2C2C marketing," he explains.

On the surface, B2B marketing appears "fairly mundane," Flaherty says. "One business communicates with another." The only problem is, "I have never in all of my years ... seen companies talk to one another," he adds. "Companies are made up of people. People talk to people, helping business talk to business."

Thus the challenge for B2B marketers, he notes, is "finding the right way, time and place in which the right people within your business can talk to the right people within their business."

To help humanize this process, Flaherty offers the KUALLA system for you to try:

• Know the people on the other end of the line. (To be completely current, know them well enough to tweet them!)
• Understand their pain point by making it your own.
• Ask where they congregate and communicate, offline and online.
• Listen to the stories of the people who make up the company.
• Learn about the processes it takes for these people to get their job done within the company each day.
• Act on your knowledge to provide these people with the information they need to understand you and your company.

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