Devoted to branding and building and protecting brands

If marketing is all about giving people reasons to buy, here are your most compelling reasons when selling into large enterprises:

1.  Build the case for your product/service that its purchase will keep the customer out of jail.

2.  Build the case that failure to purchase will result in his/her being fired. 

Overstated?  Not when you think about it.  People in large organizations are unmoved today by "cool" technology.  They'll spend time to hear more ONLY if they suspect you might have something that NO ONE ELSE has and does what nothing else can.  Anything less is just not worth their energy.  They'll make do with what they have. Their concept of innovation exceeds your concept of technology.

In this context, when you're ready to go to market, it's not enough to simply go through the motions of a product announcement.  Pre-requisites today: heavy referenceability of partners and betas if you're brand new, references of customers if you've got 'em.  Value proposition is the new marcom "message".  The latter will be sneered at if you don't have the former.  Create your own expertise about customer/buyer needs and trends.  Web 2.0 technology is making this a reality.  Application Wiki, anyone? 

Finally, CMOs today aren't simply the "air-cover" guys anymore. They own customers.  They're intimately familiar with how the product is being used, mis-used, and considered.  They guide product development based on what they know about the ways real users are consuming and applying the product.  Sales knows accounts.  Marketers know, or are supposed to know, customers.  To the extent that sales people are involved in D-I-Y marketing, theyr'e NOT selling.  This is bad for everybody.  You, them, and the customers.