If you’re considering how to best improve your customer service – take a look at your organization from top down. Ask yourself this question “Are we continually thinking of Customer Service”? If not thats part of the answer. Then ask “What is the customer perception when they first do business with us?” Are they greeted on the telephone in a pleasant manner, do my employees meeting the customers dress reflecting the company image?”. If not there is a good starting point.

Make sure your customer is greeted in a friendly manner either when they visit you or call you every time.

Make sure your customers are dressed for success- that meet your company image.

Finally allow every employee to become part of the customer is number one program.

 Just making sure these three points are covered could take you way ahead of you competition which will result in higher sales for you!

What do dress codes  have to do with Customer Service?

Your interested in improving your customer  service and all of a sudden your reading an article on the dress of your employees. What has dress got to do with Customer Service? John Molloy in his book, Dress for Success, suggests, “we are preconditioned by our environment, and the clothing we wear is an integral part of that environment. The way we dress has remarkable impact on the people we meet professionally or socially and greatly (sometimes crucially) affects how they treat us.” He concludes ,the fact is that “people who look successful and well educated receive preferential treatment in almost all their social or business encounters.”

If your employees are dressed properly your customers will treat them accordingly and they will be successful in business. That will equate to improved business for your company. A willingness to do work with your employees results in more sales in the company coffers.

Successful dress need not be expensive!

Dressing for success does not necessarily mean everyone should be wearing the “IBM Dress”, blue three piece suit ,white shirt etc. The manner of dress should suit the job. Dress codes are important as they affect and reflect the work environment. Brad Johnson, special council for the labour and Employment department at Foley and Lardner law firm in Jacksonville, states, employers have leeway with dress codes, they should be established with in reason, they need to relate to the business.” Molloy explains the first rule is “common sense”. So a stock broker wears the 3 piece suit  and the store salesperson  wears nice conservative clean sharp business casual wear. Patrick Golden a senior  art director explains “ you don’t want to underscore your work by looking like a slob”.

The “Moment of Truth”.

In other pieces we have talked about the Moment of truth. Martha Barrett a manager of businesses for the King Cos. an employment leasing firm, says ‘Appearance says a lot about you when you’re meeting someone for the first time.”

Every company or organization should have a dress code that fits their individual business. Dress codes affect personal appearance as well as that of a company, there are instances where violations can get sticky. Dress Codes should be self enforced. If your IBM or stock broker then a blue suit, if your landscape gardener a tee shirt with the company logo, a matching  logoembroidered cap and appropriate pants.  The important point is dress professionally to suit the job.

So why come to Cornerstone Management Services?

Cornerstone Management Services Inc. has been in business for 9 years, selling a successful database and helping customers improve their customer  service. More and more companies are looking for that edge to get them higher than their competition.  We have taught courses on customer service part of which includes ,” The Moment of Truth”. This has led us to expand our business offering into the promotional or perhaps professional wear area.

We have access to a number of different companies to help set your dress code. Also we can call on the menswear sales manager of a former major Canadian retail department store for input based on his 40 years of expertise. Our goal would be to outfit your employees in the dress code that meets your level of professionalism, without the high cost.

For more information see:

http://www.cornerstonemanagementservices.com/promotional_wear.html

or contact us at:

905-336-6503

 www.cornerstonemanagementservices.com

Email: dave.morris@sympatico.ca

I’ve been actively speaking over the past few weeks about a new strategic mindset I believe B2B marketers should adopt today — a ‘mass one-to-one’ strategy.  This is a posture where marketing manages scale, targeted, engaged and two-way dialogue with prospects, upstream from sales-team interaction and ultimately with the purpose of paving the way for a sales close.  This is much more than mere lead generation; moreover, the growing need for such a strategy really is the natural extension of my recent observations about how the nature of the B2B buyer is changing and the permanent shift this is affecting in the roles of both sales and marketing team members.

The intent of a mass one-to-one strategy is to close an emerging sales-cycle gap — where the buyer is seeking information and having dialogue about a purchase, but is doing so on his/her own terms, mostly online (including via social media) and prior to ever engaging a sales team member.  The strategy thus attempts to fill this gap by having marketing replicate and replace some of the engaged, ‘customer-centered selling’ interaction a sales team member might have pursued before the nature of the buyer began changing.  The strategy focuses more on initially responding to ‘pull’ and initial ‘inbound’ activity and on conforming to the buyer’s cycle than on driving interruptive ‘push’ tactics.  This means knowing the buyer better than ever before.  It also means marketing has a more strategic … and complex … role than ever before.

Source: iStockphoto

The good news is that the same Internet that brought this change also is fostering new tools to respond to it.  By embracing a holistic lead management strategy and by deploying a robust marketing automation platform, marketers can get start to get some control.  In fact, mass one-to-one sounds great and is more achievable once you have technology like this in place.  Yet most marketers will admit that the idea of building an endless number of dynamic, anticipatory, customer-triggered campaigns for some infinite number of customer types and scenarios is daunting.  Where do you stop?  How do you get any economies of scale?  Such a commitment of time and resources — without limits — can result in a declining return that does not match the investment. 

So how do we get our arms around this ‘brave new world’ of B2B marketing and get going with mass one-to-one without blowing a gasket?  In particular, how do we focus our marketing automation campaigns to get the most bang for our buck? 

I believe the answer — the ’secret sauce’ — more than ever is personas. 

Yes, personas.  Let me explain …

… first some background, though.  I was asked, in the Q&A portion of a session at B2B Marketing University in Palo Alto a few weeks ago, what I thought was the best way to focus campaign and content development, given a changing buyer and given the related challenges we face today as B2B marketers.  Without fully thinking, I said, “Personas.”  Just blurted it out.  But then I thought about it for a second. 

Yes, personas.

Personas at their core are a marketing approach to identifying prospective customer segments and better understanding the dynamics and situations that define interactions with these segments.  They help us put buckets around bigger populations and develop products and go-to-market strategies that are appropriate to their needs and buying patterns.  They also help take planning steps such as basic market segmentation to a much more useful level by putting them into context.  And in a world where the buyer has more power than ever, they help us get closer to wrapping our marketing around that buyer.

Yet even after saying this, I have concerns about my comment.  Personas are one of the most misunderstood tactics in the marketing world.  It seems that everyone has an opinion about or a reaction to personas — often from either really good or really bad experiences.  Personas also seem to come and go as a trendy marketing concept.  In fact, the topic currently is finding a resurgence among the current ‘New Marketing’/Inbound Marketing in-crowd, propelled by guys like David Meerman Scott.

I wanted to dispel some mythology and focus in on what personas really are, and what are they not.  Moreover, I wanted to address why are they such a good fit for the new challenges we face today as B2B marketers?  I also admit that while I understand and have used personas before, I was not exactly 100% up on the ’state of the art’ in personas when I proffered my answer onstage in Palo Alto. 

So, as I often do, I spent some time digging into this topic, updating my own knowledge and ‘getting smart.’  In particular, I spent time reading posts written by a number of persona luminaries, including:  Steve Mulder, a principal consultant at Molecular and author of The User Is Always Right (which I’m also now reading); Laura Patterson, president of VisionEdge Marketing; Angela Quail and Tony Zambito with Goal Centric; Adele Revella, founder of the Pragmatic Marketing seminars; and Todd Wilkens with Adaptive Path.

Here’s my synthesis …

What are personas, and what are they not?

You’ve probably heard about personas before, and more than likely it was related to product marketing.  I’ve actually (soft of) talked about personas here before — referring to research and writings by Patricia Seybold around the concept of ‘customer scenarios’ in a past blog post on this site.  Product marketers have been successfully deploying personas for some time — particularly in the consumer products arena — as a catalyst for new product and service development (NPSD).  This may skew your perspective of personas, though, so let’s be clear that the thinking around personas and their broader marketing applicability is constantly evolving and widening.  (And our focus here is meant to embrace this widening.)

Personas are increasingly being applied to the complete range of marketing activities, not just NPSD — meaning that personas are helping to define not only the product or service a buyer may want but also the channels and dialogue that will be the most effective in engaging with a prospect and closing a deal.  And in the B2B marketing arena, persons are increasingly being used as a tool for modeling your buyer segments and the buying cycle they go through.

“Understanding not only who your buyer personas are but also how they engage in the buying cycle (and how the buying process is defined) is a ‘new rule’ for the creation of buyer personas,” comments Tony Zambito, president and CEO of Goal Centric, in a post on his Buyer Persona Insights blog.

This is a critical evolution.  As I indicated above, an increasing amount of time and energy of B2B marketers is being spent on understanding, responding to and supporting engagement with buyers in the context of the changing nature of the buying cycle.  Personas thus represent both a rallying point and a catalyst for more buyer-centric B2B marketing at a time when buyers have more power than ever before — which is why I included this concept in my recent “Seven Principles for Building More Buyer-centric B2B Marketing Programs” post on the Demand Generation blog.

So at a most basic level, what is a persona and what is it not?  Laura Patterson, President of VisionEdge Marketing, tackled this in a great post on MarketingProfs:

Personas are archetypal users that represent the needs of larger groups of customers, in terms of their goals and personal characteristics. Think of them as “stand-ins” for real customers. A persona seeks to zero-in on customer behavior and characteristics. A persona is a concise description of a specific customer type.

It’s important not to confuse personas with profiles. Personas are narrative descriptions that bring user profiles to life. Personas present an alternative representation of user profile data that is easily understandable and is designed to communicate customer details that are easy for team members to keep in mind during the buying process.

This helps us better wrap our heads around personas.  Building on this — and based on the research I’ve seen — there seem to be a two key characteristics that define effective personas:

> They are insight-based and focused on defining the common core of buyer segments.  Effective personas are rooted in research, and they help us understand opportunities for better engaging with B2B buyers.  What is an insight?  “An insight is a focused observation about a gap between your customers’ actual experience and a possible experience that would either relieve a point of pain or actually take them all the way to enjoyment,” explains Angela Quail, a colleague of Tony Zambito at Goal Centric, in a different post on MarketingProfs.  Taking this further, Patterson explains in her article above, “The purpose of a persona is to identify a customer’s motivations, expectations, and goals. Even though personas … are fictitious, they are based on knowledge of real customers. A well-crafted persona enables you to stand in your customer’s shoes and take a more customer-centric view.”

> They combine a descriptive profile with a contextual situation.  Effective personas are more than just a profile, as Patterson explained above.  They start with a description of a buyer, but they seek to understand the context through which a company might interact with a given buyer — either in the context of a buying cycle or in the context of using the product or service.  This is why personas are such a critical tool for B2B marketers.  Increasingly marketing has more touch points with a buyer than any other part of the organization, and the marriage of profile with context is critical to modeling effective interactions and to designing marketing programs that will result in higher sales conversion rates.  Personas thus become a valuable lens both for analyzing marketing investments and for mapping them to successful programs and tactics.

Source: Adam Needles, Propelling Brands (original); click to enlarge graphic

What are the key elements of an effective B2B persona today?

There are some fundamental differences between B2C and B2B marketing.  No question.  What makes B2B marketing different?  B2B marketers tend to support direct sales forces; theirs is a high-involvement sales process in which a great deal of information is exchanged and a number of stakeholders are involved; products tend to be lower volume, higher price; and the buying process tends to be rational, versus emotional.

B2B is a complex dance with high-involvement by both buyers and marketing/sales team members.  This complexity has led many to shy away from personas — viewing them as an oversimplification.  “One of the most pressing issues that have surfaced in the last few years with the evolution of personas and with buyer personas in particular is how to address the complexity often found in B2B markets,” explains Zambito in his post above.  “In fact, I believe it is the underlying issue that has prevented buyer personas from being more widely adapted.”

B2B personas don’t have to be complex, though, to be effective.  In fact, there are just a few key elements that are critical to developing effective B2B personas (building on the two key characteristics defined above):

> Buying cycle definition and alignment:  We touched on this a bit above, but it’s critical to re-iterate this point.  A successful and useful set of B2B personas must identify and encompass the discrete and addressable set of ‘critical paths’ commonly followed by groups of buyers, and then segment by grouping common ‘like’ paths.

Zambito further explains, “To fully realize the potential of buyer personas today, they need to be part of an overall effort to integrate them with buying process scenarios and a view of the ‘ecosystem’ that is relevant to a specific B2B market.  These views are essential to understanding … how as well as why buying decisions are made.”

> Identification of both explicit and implicit ‘critical factors’ in the buying cycle:  What are the common traits and actions that lead to sales conversions and that define the ‘critical paths’ customers take?  Given this, what are the discrete and definable buckets of these common traits and actions?  That’s what we want to find out, but we need a complete picture.  This means analyzing and identifying both explicit/demographic factors of these personas and also implicit/behavioral factors.  One without the other skews the picture; that’s why we need both.

“Personas can’t make a credible impact on sales and marketing strategies if their description is limited to information about demographics and pain points,” explains Adele Revella, developer of the acclaimed Pragmatic Marketing seminars, in a recent post on her blog.

> Linkage to lead score models and lead management processes:  There is no element of B2B marketing planning that lives in isolation.  Everything is integrated as savvy sales leaders have always known, and as increasingly-savvy B2B marketers are finding.  The same explicit and implicit critical factors that must be identified for the persona are also the factors that should be driving your lead score model, and consequently your lead routing and nurturing processes.  Not only should the two be fully aligned and integrated, but the development of the persona can prove to be an opportunity to put ‘flesh’ and real-life understanding back into a lead score model.

Similarly, the scope of the insights driving your personas should take into account the entire lead management process and the entire critical path buyers follow, rather than merely focusing on activity at the earliest stages of the buying process. 

Revella addresses these points in her post above.  She also highlights how personas can contribute to greater sales and marketing alignment by driving common understanding of the critical path buyers follow:

I suspect the problem with much of the discussion on the blogosphere is that personas are a popular topic for web designers and others that focus on the early stages of the buying and awareness process. Perhaps the simple information they describe is enough for marketers who only focus on the top of the funnel. But this focus is dangerous in business-to-business marketing.  While many people believe that marketing is all about lead generation, even highly qualified leads won’t result in revenue until the sales people have the training and tools to overcome the resistance they’re going to face later in the sales process.

Marketers complain that sales people don’t follow-up on their leads, even those that are highly qualified. But who can blame sales people who have various ways to make quota for choosing to sell products where they can anticipate the buyer’s reaction at each step in the sales process. Marketing needs to step up its game, using buyer personas to deliver the training and tools that drive sales funnel conversions.

> Capturing the diverse nature of the modern, savvy B2B ‘buying unit’:  One of the stark realities that B2B marketers face today is that there is no single buyer.  I noted in my recent blog piece on how the nature of the B2B buyer is changing that buyers are “… operating in a more sophisticated fashion than ever. A big-ticket purchase will be evaluated by a team of people, ranging from the initial recommender, to someone making the business case, to a purchasing agent, to legal/finance/etc. It’s a complex process to navigate.”

Zambito echoes this in his blog post above:  “One thing that I am sure any person in the B2B markets will tell you is that there is never just one ‘buyer’ in these markets.”  He further offers, “[T]his misunderstanding and common pitfall of attempting to create a ’single’ user or buyer persona can be costly and result in little value.”

Steve Mulder, a principal consultant at Molecular, talks about this in his book, The User Is Always Right, which provides great insights into using personas to drive more effective Web content interactions.  “It’s too easy to think and talk about ‘the user’ as if everyone who visits the site has the same goals, acts the same way, and thinks the same way,” says Mulder.  “Intellectually, I know my users are very different, but it’s tempting to create a single abstract, idealized user to design [content] for, because it simplifies my decision-making.”

Why do B2B marketers need personas to find success with marketing automation campaigns and with adopting a mass one-to-one strategy ?

This brings us back to the original issue — and the title of this post.  This is where the rubber meets the road.  Let me say that I strongly believe personas are the secret sauce for effective marketing automation campaigns and the key to achieving a ‘mass one-to-one’ strategy.

Patterson does a great job in her post above of summarizing the top line argument for why personas make sense in B2B:  “Personas provide valuable insight into the motivations and personalities of specific buyers and users. While they are simple in form and structure, the information they contain is powerful; it can be applied to decisions throughout the sales-enablement process. Personas can help with understanding specific requirements, facilitating alignment, and expediting the sales cycle.”

Taking this further, I believe there are four specific reasons why personas are critical to helping us respond to the ‘brave new world’ of B2B marketing and find success with marketing automation campaigns.  I believe personas:

> Focus company attention and resources on what matters — the buyer and his/her/its needs:  I feel somewhat ridiculous calling this out, but I’ve been around the product-centric/sales-led world of B2B for too long and I know this gets forgotten.  So this is my first supporting point for ‘why personas.’

“Successful companies recognize that putting users at the center of decision-making is almost always a good idea,” argues Steve Mulder in an interview with Liz Danzico on her Boxes and Arrows blog.  And Todd Wilkens agrees in a defense of personas on his own blog:  “[P]ersonas have always improved an organizations understanding of their customers because, if nothing else, they become a tangible and explicit artifact for focusing and catalyzing discussion about customers. While this may not always be inspiring, it moves things forward.”

> Focus the development of go-to-market strategy and the design of marketing campaigns:  Even for organizations that have a reasonably-enlightened sense of who their customers are, there seems to be tons of go-to-market strategy and specific design of marketing campaigns that remains un-inspired, un-focused and basically just a shot in the dark:  ‘Someone buy my product … pretty please.’  Come on, B2B folks, you know this is true.  The good news is that having a discrete sense of personas, along with their insights into the critical paths buyers follow in their buying cycles, is a quantum leap.  This totally (re-) focuses the development of your go-to-market strategy and gives you rationale for how you should design your campaigns.  This is particularly helpful when it comes to the issue of which channels and in what sequence.  If you know your buyer personas, this stuff is easy.

> Rationalize content development in terms of buyer dialogue:  Content development is consistently one of the greatest challenges B2B marketers find themselves wrestling with.  Too much content gets developed in a vacuum.  Personas change everything.  If you know your buyers and their personas, then it’s a breeze to develop content that aligns to the buying cycle and that propels forward a coherent dialogue — something I touched on in a recent Demand Generation blog piece.

Personas also give insight into aspects of the content you probably aren’t really even focused on today.  Steve Mulder in his book above comments, “In any medium, effective communication can make or break a relationship between a business and a user.  The content is important, but so are the style and tone in which it is delivered, which is why it needs to be tailored to the users you’re serving.  And by ‘content,’ I don’t just mean text, because imagery and multimedia also contribute to the messages you communicate.”

> Are critical to efficiently scaling your marketing automation campaigns:  This closes the loop.  We all want mass one-to-one, but we can’t develop infinite numbers of campaigns, tracks and content.  Personas keep us focused and allow us to know when to stop.  If we’ve identified 5 major clusters that we can describe in terms of personas, we can ‘go deep’ with these and knock the content and dynamic tracks for these campaigns out of the park.  This is a lot harder to do if you try to design an individual track for every possible buyer you might come in contact with.  Truth is that while we truly want to get to mass one-to-one, we still need to get some economies of scale.  Personas enable us to intelligently access economies of scale as marketers without losing sight of buyers’ needs and/or missing opportunities for real engagement.

So what are the best practices for designing and implementing B2B buyer personas, and how can a B2B marketer get going with personas?  I’ll cover this in a follow-up post early next week on the Silverpop Demand Generation blog.  Stay tuned …

There’s no question that 2009 has been tough on Customer Advisory Board(CAB) programs and events.  Many companies had little choice but to cancel or postpone their events this fall.  But good news is on the horizon.  The Dow has hit 10,000 and many expect signs of recovery to continue to blossom in 2010.  Kicking off or rejuvinating your company’s CAB (or Customer Advisory Council – CAC) program is an excellent way to strengthen customer loyalty and ensure you are on the right (roadmap) track for 2010.

I’ve been facilitating CABs and other executive summits and offsites for more than 10 years.   Here is a collection of articles that offer insights, tips, and best practices that will help optimize your program and build stronger executive relationships.

• Are you getting strategic insight from your best customers?
  Customer Advisory Boards help you validate and refine your product direction
• What Came First, the CAB or the Executive Relationship?
• CAB or no CAB? That is the question
• How Three Collaboration Trends are Reshaping Marketing
• Customer Advisory Boards: Frequently Asked Questions
• Expect More Out of Meetings: Professional facilitators can keep your meetings focused and productive

Getting ready to head home from the Sherpa B2B Summit tonight. Want to thank the team at MarketingSherpa for inviting me to speak. I enjoyed it immensely and it seemed like my talk went over well.  As I have said before, in addition to picking up great topics and lessons from the presenters, I really appreciate the time just to think about marketing topics. I usually come home with a long list of great ideas, hopefully we can actually execute some of them.

So in no particular order here are some my takeaways/ideas/thoughts from the event.

Chairs: I have been to numerous shows, and usually the table + chair set up is more fitting of a high school classroom. Kudos to the Westin for having good space and comfy chairs. Having spent over 40 hours on a plane in the last week or so, I was happy for that!

Grasshopper Viral Video: This was a cool viral campaign. See the details here and the video here

http://grasshopper.com/5000/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6MhAwQ64c0

I thought it was Kind of similar to some recent ads on TV celebrating the small businesses that drive the economy. While this video is extremely cool, seems a bit disconnected from the promise of the brand.

Conversions: Big topic of the conference centered on conversions, using SEO and PPC specifically to drive business opportunities. Some great stories on how people blew up their sites to focus on search leads with amazing results.

Hubspot: Much thanks to Mike and the team for a nice dinner out.  Some of things they themselves are doing with video is very cool and they have a great spirit. Definitely worth taking a look at their service.

Lead Scoring: We have only started the lead scoring process because volume is low, but we need to get serious. Some companies are doing some amazingly advanced things to score leads into the nurture funnel vs the sales funnel.  Emily Salus of Collabnet told a great story on their effort. A good interview on the topic with her can be found on the Smashmouth Marketing Blog.

I especially liked the idea that students get a -500 on a +100 scale. Competitors get -250. They stay in the system though so they can track what they do, but they never make it to sales. Love it.

Facebook for B2B, yes or no? Lots of discussion about if Facebook is really a viable channel for B2B. A few companies (including me) are very skeptical. Yet there are a few really strong examples of companies taking their “Fans” and turning that into business.  I posted the question to my FB network and right now its running 5-1 against.  For us, it’s likely going to help us more on recruiting, but time will tell.

If you are interested in the notes that MarketingSherpa took and the slides from the event (including mine) you can link to them here:

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/B2BMarketingSummit09Slides/index.html

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/B2BSummitwhiteboard/b2b09.html

And I you want to review the Tweets from the event search on #sherpab2b09.

See you in Boston in two weeks!

I’ve been actively writing and presenting over the last few months on the changing B2B marketing landscape. And I’ll be talking more about this subject throughout the Fall at the B2B Marketing University series that I’m hosting together with my colleagues at Silverpop (please join us).

A great deal of the focus of my dialogue so far has been on the evolution of marketing technology, but it’s impossible to talk about a changing environment for marketing technology without talking about how the nature of the B2B buyer also is rapidly changing. The two are inextricably intertwined in a new reality that is both a cause and effect of the digital age we live in.

Source: iStockphoto

But where is the hard data that this evolution is really occurring? We’re changing how we go to market — and there is plenty of data pointing to shifting spending by marketers — but how do we know that our shifted spending will better align with B2B buyers’ shifting needs and preferences?

There are quite a few data points that support this evolution; however, they’re often difficult to unearth. Often they are buried or confused within consumer-focused studies on buying trends, and sometimes the consumer data even contradicts the B2B reality. Marketing technology analyst and author David Raab hit on this in a recent round-up of many of these ‘mixed’ consumer/B2B surveys on his Customer Experience Matrix blog. And a major call-out from his piece was just this discrepancy: “Many [data points] are contradictory …,” commented Raab.

So how do we better articulate the unique and changing nature of the B2B buyer — separate from the broader consumer perspective? How do we nail down (real) evidence that the nature of the B2B buyer has changed?

Given the importance of these data and insights to my work, I spent some time updating my perspective to make sure that as B2B marketers we’re on the firmest ground possible. It’s critical that we really understand in an accurate and granular way how best to address the ‘brave new world’ of B2B marketing that I believe is emerging. The good news is that in the process I ran across some very interesting studies and insights, which I’m happy to share.

So first I’ll tackle a definition of how B2B buying behavior has changed, and then I’ll present data points from cutting edge research on the topic I believe illustrates this new reality.

What exactly is the change that has occurred in B2B buying behavior?

As a starting point, let me say that I believe the fundamental buying cycle — i.e., the stages buyers typically go through to make a decision — has not changed. I talked a bit about this in a recent blog post on the Silverpop Demand Generation Blog via the concept of ‘Customer Centered Selling’ that former (and legendary) XEROX sales trainer Robert Jolles has written about.

I still believe this cycle exists, in perpetuity; however, as I outlined in the Demand-Gen blog piece, when and where buyers engage with in-house sales and marketing resources versus external resources is what has fundamentally changed.

In fact, the last decade has brought a rapid (r)evolution in the alignment of resources and power — something I detailed in a recent guest piece on the ReachForce blog:

There are many challenges facing B2B marketers today, but they are almost all traceable to one inflection point — a fundamental, Internet-age shift in power that has taken place. Today, the B2B ‘buying unit’ has immense information-based resources at its disposal. Couple this with a corporate accountability and transparency mindset, and the result is a B2B buyer that is now calling the shots … not the B2B vendor.

The implication is a new B2B marketing dynamic that demands responding to customer ‘pull’ over a traditional marketing ‘push’ mentality. …

Buyers increasingly set the ground rules on when and where they will engage. Buyers also increasingly turn to trusted third parties for education, not sales people … whom they engage as an almost final stage in their process. This means B2B marketers must focus heavily on ‘getting found,’ nurturing prospects and managing pre-sales buyer dialogue.

This is a critical re-framing of the B2B buyer/seller relationship. Much has been written about how sales and marketing strategy is evolving — becoming more sophisticated via CRM and marketing automation. Yet this is not an asynchronous evolution, and buyers are setting the pace … and getting ahead of sales and marketing organizations.

This is something that SiriusDecisions — an analyst firm that covers innovation in sales and marketing strategies — further clarified in a recent post on their corporate blog:

Buying 2.0 is a better metaphor for the buying/selling interactions of today’s selling environment as the hunter has become the hunted. Buyers are more informed and seek information independent of sales. Buyers have access to overwhelming amounts of information, but seek intelligence they can trust to support their decision making process. How sales people want to sell has little impact on how buyers are choosing to buy.

What is the evidence that the nature of the B2B buyer is changing?

To answer this question, I spent some time reviewing recent research and reports by a number of firms that cover B2B marketing. Below is my major synthesis of the dynamics that define this re-shaped B2B buyer nature, backed up by studies I think help us better believe in these dynamics.

> B2B buyers are increasingly turning to online sources, earlier in their process, to research purchases before ever calling a ‘live’ sales rep: There’s a lot of evidence that the B2B buyer is using a variety of channels to access industry peers’ insights — insights that will ultimately shape their buying decision — via Internet-based/virtual mechanisms. This speaks not only to the rise of social media, but also to that of other forums, such as virtual trade shows.

“[T]he poor economy has forced a shift away from face-to-face events and trade shows, and toward their virtual or online counterparts,” explains Bill Gadless in a post on the B2B Web Strategy blog that summarized a recent research report by MarketingSherpa.

This “2009-10 B2B Marketing: Benchmark Report” by MarketingSherpa, which interviewed technology buyers who make purchases greater than $25,000 (i.e., large, consultative purchases), highlights the significant and increasing usage of online mediums by B2B buyers versus traditional media and/or face-to-face events. The chart below (used with permission) points to this trend:

Source: MarketingSherpa; click to enlarge

The MarketingSherpa data speak to a new preference for online. Additional research from Enquiro highlights how early in the B2B buying process online sources are now consulted — shaping early perceptions.

Enquiro recently launched a project it is calling The Buyersphere Project, which is focused on capturing the changing nature of the B2B buyer. As part of this project, Enquiro published a white paper, titled “Integrated Persuasion: Online and Offline,” that further supports this point:

It seems that it’s common to take to partially defined need and flesh it out through online research. Therefore, online can be a powerful influence at these early stages. The result of the research is fundamental in determining potential candidates, defining comparison criteria and formalizing the purchase plan. It’s important to understand that although this research happens early, there is typically already at least one vendor that’s embedded the consideration set, a seed planted there either by past experience, approved vendor status or marketing. This existing vendor mindshare can influence the online resources consulted, the words used in web searches and the vendor websites visited. Online research confirms their position and adds other candidates.

The Enquiro white paper illustrated this reality via the following graph (used with permission), which captures the ongoing role of online — especially at the earlier stages:

Source: Enquiro; click to enlarge

> B2B buyers are increasingly leveraging social media — especially peer communication, such as Twitter, blogs, etc. — in the information collection phase of the buying process: Not only are B2B buyers increasingly turning to online sources, but they are seeking via the online world the same types of peer references and word-of-mouth they have always relied upon. This is where social media is playing an increasing role in the B2B buying process.

David Raab recently noted on his Customer Experience Matrix blog, “[S]ocial media have grown from virtually nothing to nearly 20% of online time over the past few years. This matters because social media are an alternative gateway to finding Web content: Instead of doing a search, I can ask my online community for information or recommendations.”

A 2007 Forrester / Erickson Barnett white paper noted of B2B buyers, “[W]e found this group to be 1.3 times more likely to engage in social media activities for business purposes than for personal.” The paper also reported that “[w]hile 44% of adults, according to Forrester, have no participation in social media, only 9% of the B2B marketers who responded [to the survey] were inactive.”

More recently, Laura Ramos and Oliver Young with Forrester’s Technology Industry/B2B group, published a very interesting report titled “The Social Technographics of Business Buyers.” (See Forrester-posted SlideShare presentation below.) They interviewed “more than 1,200 technology buyers in the U.S., Canada, France, Germany and the U.K. with 100 employees or more in seven major industries,” according to Ramos in a BtoB Magazine write-up of the top-level research findings.

Josh Bernoff commented on these report findings via Forrester’s Groundswell blog: “91% of … technology decision-makers [are] Spectators — the highest number I’ve ever seen in a Social Technographics Profile. This means you can count on the fact that your buyers are reading blogs, watching user generated video, and participating in other social media. Note that 69% of them said they were using this technology for business purposes.”

> B2B buyers are pursuing their buying process more ‘massively multi-channel’ than ever before; however, channel weightings and their sequence vary by the phase of the buying process: “Unlike consumers who tend to lean more strongly one way or the other, the B2B buyer tends to now converge channels into an integrated buying cycle and process. And, I bet confusing the heck out of many marketing departments,” commented Tony Zambito in a post on his Buyer Persona Insights blog earlier this year.

This is absolutely the new reality of B2B buying, and it is both multi-channel online, as well as a blend of online and offline data gathering.

Enquiro released research in 2007 that points to some of this pattern. The chart below (used with permission) captures shifting emphasis on different mediums over the life of the B2B buying cycle, but what is noteworthy is that all mediums are consulted in parallel at all stages.

Source: Enquiro; click to enlarge

The Enquiro chart also hints at the sequencing of channels in the buying process — something Akin Arikan covers in his book, Multichannel Marketing. He makes some great points about maintaining focus and control in a multi-channel marketing environment. “[I]t is one thing to interact through multiple channels in parallel,” comments Arikan. “It is quite another to fuse those activities together in an intelligent way to maximize response and conversion rates.” Akin goes on to point out that today “[b]uyers are multichannel beings. Buying cycles are cross-channel.”

> B2B buyers manifest themselves more than ever as a complex, savvy ‘buying unit,’ rather than simply as a single decision-maker: Not only are B2B buyers integrating multiple online and offline channels and opinion sources, but they also are operating in a more sophisticated fashion than ever. A big-ticket purchase will be evaluated by a team of people, ranging from the initial recommender, to someone making the business case, to a purchasing agent, to legal/finance/etc. It’s a complex process to navigate.

“Relationship marketing is the key here and different levels of the organization participate in the buying/selling process especially if the sale is a big ticket sale,” commented Lowell D’Souza in a recent post on his Marketing Bones blog site.

Enquiro highlighted this in another white paper, ” Maximizing Online: Leveraging Your Online Touch Points,” that further supports this point. Enquiro points to differential involvement of end users — who may have made the initial business case for a purchase — versus those in the procurement group — who are responsible for assessing and negotiating a purchase. This can be seen in the chart below (used with permission).

Source: Enquiro; click to enlarge

So what is the impact of all of this change in the nature of the B2B buyer on B2B marketing and on sales and marketing alignment? The most significant impact is the death of the traditional sales funnel and a new approach that must be embraced by B2B marketers — an approach I’ll cover in a post on the Silverpop Demand Generation blog later this week.

With vacation and business travel it has been difficult to post to the blog regularly, however a 15 hour flight to Mumbai gives you ample time to reflect (and sleep, and watch a movie or two…!)

This week I will be presenting at MarketingSherpa’s B2B forum a case study on how to do more with less. I will post the slides through SlideShare after the event but a quick preview.

In today’s economy, it’s ever more important to think about the opportunity cost of all of our investments in marketing. A quick reminder in case it has been awhile since you took an economics class: for every dollar you spend, or good you make, there is something else you can’t buy or a good you cannot make as a result. This good or service that is foregone represents the opportunity cost of your investment.  In marketing that simply means that ever dollar counts twice: once for the activity we are going to run, and the second time for the activity we can’t do as a result.

When budgets are flush this math is less important. But in times like these, it’s extraordinarily critical. And it often leads to planning paralysis because we have so many great ideas on what to do, we get overwhelmed by what we can’t do.  In that moment of indecision crucial time is lost.

One way my team helps break through this is by looking for ways we can “force multiply” our spending. This means we try to run programs that have multiple threads attached to them. For example rather than doing your own podcast, partner with a publication to run the podcast and secure a lead guarantee and name generation campaign to help feed the top end of the funnel.

When you start stringing some of these multi-threaded concepts tighter into a campaign you can stretch your dollars dramatically even without a huge staff to execute on multiple fronts.  Look for more details and results of how we did this at Ness soon.

I am also interested in how YOU have done managed your opportunity costs as well.  Send me your ideas  by commenting here or to my Twitter account @ajdun and I will happily share your ideas with my MarketingSherpa audience.

“I’m looking to hire a campaign manager to oversee our integrated marketing programs. What are the characteristics of the best campaign managers?”

I get asked this question a lot. Earlier in my career, I worked as a campaign manager at HP, Sun, and Ariba , so I’ve seen the good, bad, and the ugly. I’ll be up front with you and say that I’ve made my share of mistakes along the way. That experience opened my eyes to the marraige of marketing expertise with an appreciation for internal politics.

The biggest challenge campaign managers have is that they have a purview over an integrated marketing campaign (aka the “big picture”) but no direct authority over the team players who will execute the campaign. They walk a tightrope between meeting the campaign goals while aligning and carefully guiding a team of folks who have other masters. With that in mind, the most effective campaign managers have these traits in common:

• A recognized, well-rounded marketing leader familiar with the target market
• Proven leadership experience in “managing by objective” Attentive to detail, but smart enough not to micro-manage
• Diplomatic and politically savvy
• Patient
• A good facilitator, seasoned in active listening techniques
• Excellent written and oral communicator (with the team, to upper management, and in front of the steering committee)
• Knows when and how to provide constructive feedback in real time during team meetings; knows when and how to provide direct feedback in one-on-one settings
• Is prepared to make hard decisions and trade-offs for the greater good of the campaign
• Most of all, doesn’t let their ego get in the way of sound recommendations

There’s art and science in this role. The science comes from understanding sound marketing best practices. More important than understanding the specific products being sold, the best campaign managers bring an awareness and appreciation for the customer and their business problems and opportunities. While they usually won’t know all the answers, their expertise comes in knowing the right questions to ask the team in order to define, architect, and execute the best, most effective integrated marketing campaigns. That’s the art.

Looking for more information on integrated marketing campaigns? Please see Chapter 7 in Marketing Campaign Development.

I have a hard cold truth for marketers: we are no longer in complete control of driving the lead funnel! 

As recently as a couple of years ago, marketers were.  The lead funnel was driven by our pushing messages out to our target audiences.  We controlled the message, the media, and the timing.  Social media has changed the dynamics.  People are finding out about our companies and products before they even get on our radar screen.  Some sources even estimate that 90% of the customer’s buying process takes place without the aid of a sales rep!  This has huge implications for our marcom mix.

The upshot: we must help our companies become “findable” in a marketing landscape we no longer control.

Being “findable” is not just about having a decent website.  It’s about having relevant, meaningful content available that addresses the topics buyers are interested in.  And, it’s about having this content posted in places where buyers look.  In fact, we shouldn’t be talking about social media as if it were another marketing silo.  Instead, we should focus on “content marketing” — providing information and experiences that buyers are looking for.  More than that, we can better establish and nurture a dialog with a prospect if we think about how to provide meaningful content that can be:

• Captured = easy-to-read content posted in a friendly format that can be cut-n-pasted and downloaded, and . . .
• Stored = easy to tag, sort, and file in electronic or printed format
• Forwarded = easy to pass-along and share with others, both formally (i.e. cut-n-pasted into a presentation) and informally (i.e. sharing a link via Twitter)
• Repurposed = content that can be annotated and adapted by the reader to fit their unique decision-making process

Including Social Media in a Marketing Blueprint

Integrating social media in the marcom mix

Today’s lead gen programs can produce higher ROI if they combine elements of both traditional “push” marketing (where you control the message) and “pull” marketing (where we offer information on non-corporate sites and we  listen to and monitor the discussion around us).  The example shown in the above illustration is based on a real marketing blueprint being executed today by a local hi-tech company.

There’s more to the story, of course.  But this gives you a flavor on how and where social media is being used to complement traditional outbound marketing activities.   How will all this play out?  I’ll let you know when the campaign concludes in November!

How are you using social media?  I’d love to hear your stories.

Cornerstone Management Services Inc. has grown since its inception some 8 years ago. During this time we have produced marketing plans, taught customer service courses and developed and marketed our successful Customer Relationship Management Reporting System.

Part of each of our Customer Service courses is explaining the importance of “The Moment of Truth”. We believe in “The Moment of Truth”. This is the time when your customer first meets one of your employees. He/She will form an opinion as soon as they contact your employee as to what kind of business is being run and if they in fact want to do business with you. The key is to provide the best service possible, as professionally as possible. In the words of Will Rogers,  “You never get a second chance at a first impression.”

Our business/marketing plans, spend considerable time to set the tone and level of professionalism, for a company. This includes how the employees dress. As part of our business we have supplied shirts, caps and other promotional items. In today’s world businesses fight for every sale they can make , and it is most important that your staff are dressed in a clothes that makes them look as professional as possible.

We would suggest that Company’s outfit their employees in either golf shirts, casual shirts or dress shirts with the company logo embroidered on the chest. This sets the level of professionalism realized by the Customer.  To this end we are pleased to announce we are expanding our business to making available a wider variety of items.

Whether you operate a pizzeria, manage a parts distribution store, manage a transit system, or are a Chef. We can outfit your employees in smart professional wear, embroidered or silk screened with your logo. We can also help you develop special marketing programs. Should these programs require give a ways, we can help develop and obtain these for you too.

You may have heard the joke that “only half of our marketing spending is effective; we just don’t know which half.” Mareketing program effectiveness metrics offer a lot of help in figuring out which marketing programs are most and least effective.

The marketing programs effectiveness template is one of our most complex and powerful models. This application computes a “contribution margin” for each marketing program. (A contribution margin means the funds that are left after you subtract some but not all of the costs and expenses from the associated revenue; what is left ‘contributes’ to covering the remaining costs that were not subtracted and to profits.) This calculation is sometimes known by the name  “return on marketing investment”. These metrics are a major advance in marketing management methods.

To compute a contribution margin, we must do two fundamental computations.

• Allocate marketing costs to individual marketing programs. This is usually fairly easy to do in a reasonable way.
• Allocate revenue to marketing programs in a way that reflects the role played by each marketing program in winning each order.  This computation is the hard part, because it involves numerous subtle assumptions that are approximations to reality. Some of the key principles used in this computation are: (1) the customer is the purchase decision network, often approximated by a company division and address (not the individual who championed or placed the order); (2) a marketing program is an asset that depreciates over time until end of life, when it no longer impacts purchase decisions; (3) the revenue for a given time period should be matched with the imputed depreciation of the marketing programs during that time period.

The most important use of these metrics is to compare marketing activities of the same type with one another (for example two webinars) to see which programs are strong or weak. (When you compare two kinds of programs, such as direct mail and seminars, it is necessary to make allowance for the fact that some types of programs have tougher jobs to do, like finding new prospects.) I implemented this method in a company with tens of thousands of marketing programs (for example, each seminar with a given title, on a particular date in a particular city was considered to be a separate marketing program whose contribution margin could be estimated. When these metrics are combined with first-hand field knowledge, they have proven extremely useful. The spreadsheet file contains more commentary on how to use the metrics.

You can get more information, download sample templates, and get customized templates at  http://www.modelsheetsoft.com/store_mktgslspgms.aspx.

–Dick Petti

I have spent the last few days jamming on my presentation for the upcoming Marketing Sherpa B2B event in San Francisco and Boston.  I am trying to avoid doing bulleted slides (so BORING!), but its harder than it looks.

I am calling this talk: “How to market when every dollar counts–Twice.”  The thrust of the presentation is centered on how we do more with less, while avoiding the natural paralysis that arises when budgets shrink and the need to focus goes up.  I haven’t been blessed with massive budgets in my career so instead I have tried to look for creative ways to make budget dollars go farther.  This presentation is a compilation of my best thinking on this topic, and a case study on our recent agile development campaign.

And for good measure, I am throwing in a few words on good ‘ol micro economic opportunity cost theory just to see if people are awake in the back of the room.  Can’t wait to see the Twitter chatter when I get to THAT point in the presentation!

Speaking of Twitter, the coordinators published the event hashtag this week.  You can follow the proceedings using #sherpab2b09. And as the event draws closer I intend to capture some of your best ideas for cost effective marketing concepts and posting them here and republishing them over Twitter.  But don’t be shy, you can start now.

See you in San Francisco, or Boston.

Think of the key technology thought leaders you know of, how did they get that way? Was it good marketing, or was it from having a dynamic personality and a point of view that was highly relevant at that time?

We often talk about “becoming a thought leader” as part of our marketing campaigns. In fact back in my PR agency days, every new business pitch had a campaign to “become a thought leader.” It usually involved writing articles, getting on the speaking circuit, doing media and analyst interviews, and carrying a specific “stump speech” or point of view into every interaction.

Today I am sure those plans include using Blogs, Twitter feeds, community engagement, LinkedIn groups and a host of other social media tools to drive a point of view.

But I think you need to have something more.  Kind of like catching lightening in a bottle. You need to have the right point of view, at the right time, the credibility to give it teeth, and perhaps most importantly, the personality and passion to see it through.

I have met a number of so-called gurus over the years and it is easy to separate out who was real and who was not.  The real gurus had a real following.  It wasn’t measured necessarily in the number of followers or how hard they worked at it, but rather in the power of their ideas.  And it was rarely done for the gain of their company. Sure their company benefited from the profile they created, but their profile was not created for the good of the company.

The power of social media only means that you have more tools at your disposal, and gives you a global reach to your ideas. But if your topic is also a personal passion, no amount of marketing or PR is going to turn you into a thought leader –the community at large will sniff that out too quickly.

Instead today we are not talking about “becoming a thought leader.” Instead our goals are more inline with what we can impact. We are taking a “leadership position” and using the tools at our disposal to communicate that position to our customers and prospects.  Over time the market may confer thought leadership upon us.

That will be just fine with us, but we are not waiting around for it either.

I have mentioned in a previous post that Ness is kicking off a focused Business Intelligence services campaign targeted at Business Intelligence owners. It’s no surprise that spending on Business Intelligence is holding steady, even growing, despite the economy.  The demand for data just becomes more pressing by the day.

We liken BI to the Butterfly Effect. You may be familiar with the premise as it relates to time travel, the movie of the same name starting Ashton Kutcher, or the original weather-related parable that if a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, it spawns a tornado in Texas.. . The business corollary is simply: what decision would you make differently with better, more timely information? You can read more from Ness on this subject here.

We are testing a few different ideas in the social media world at the same time.  You will notice that the page on ness.com is written a bit differently than a traditional B2B web page—we wanted to give it a bit lighter touch.  We also are not making you register to download our short paper (heresy in the B2B world!)

In fact the only way to get to this page is to click on it from this blog, our various Twitter feeds, our Facebook page, our LinkedIn groups, and a few other places. I have written before about “Getting outside the four walls of your web site” and this is our first formal attempt to do it. You can engage with us however you wish, we are trying to make it easy, and interesting, no matter the medium you choose.

So take a look through our different pages, and feel to play BI Buzzword Bingo with us on Twitter by using the #BuzzBingo hashtag.

The prevailing wisdom in marketing today is that achieving the greatest levels of performance requires true, closed-loop, customer-level insight into the effectiveness of marketing programs.  If you can see a detailed, causal chain through the complete demand-generation process and correlate steps and interactions in that chain to account-level customer spending, you can then analyze how various marketing activities contribute to final results.  Further, if you can analyze your marketing at such a granular level, you can tie spending to specific outcomes and can continuously tune your overall marketing formula at all levels.

I’ve touched on this imperative in past blog posts.  So no argument here.  In fact, as a tenured marketer (and now as a team member at a marketing technology company), it’s exciting to look around and witness the rapid evolution in marketing technology that is moving us closer to this reality.

It also goes without saying that in this environment, plenty is written about the drive for marketing accountability. 

Yet there is something subtle that gets missed and that I would argue should be the greater focus in the accountability dialogue.  It is the inherent and holistic upside for marketers of having an accountability mindset – i.e., the positive transformation that results from embracing a new approach to marketing.

I call it the ‘halo effect’ of marketing accountability.

And I believe it’s increasingly critical that we as marketers both understand and embrace it.

What is this halo effect?

Let me explain. 

Michael Dunn, who with co-author Chris Halsall recently wrote The Marketing Accountability Imperative, helps us to understand the halo effect via an April post on BrandChannel.com. 

Dunn wrote:

Senior management continues to push marketers to demonstrate a strong return on investment, demanding more accountability and evidence that marketing investment is driving business growth.

It requires marketers to demonstrate disciplined planning, rigorous tracking and evaluation and, above all, continuous improvement in performance. They must also show cause and effect, quickly diagnose the root causes of any spending performance issues and make timely, fact-driven decisions to improve returns.

Call it accountable marketing performance …

Dunn’s comments give a sense of how subtle the halo effect is.  He starts out by commenting on the reactive need to defend marketing investments, but he switches to the importance of marketers proactively taking their game to the next level.  As I said, it’s a subtle point, but the same transformation in this brief passage is what seems to result from the pressure of external accountability.

In fact, I’ve run across an increasing body of evidence indicating that when marketers take the time do this they not only improve through the tuning of their marketing formula, per se, but they also become more proactive and aggressive as marketers.  They take their game to the next level.

This is what I think of as the halo effect of marketing accountability. 

The pressure to be more accountable causes marketers to look inwardly at how they approach their work and ultimately transforms their entire approach.  This means that for marketers – as painful as accountability may seem – it’s really the key to becoming a marketing rock star.

What is the evidence of this halo effect of marketing accountability?

As I indicated, I’ve run across an increasing body of evidence pointing to this halo effect – albeit sometimes not where you’d expect to find the evidence. 

Here are a few data points:

> Correlation between aggressive adoption of strategic marketing technology and budgetary source (via my own research):  I got an initial sense of this effect as I was analyzing data from some of my recent graduate research at Wisconsin, prior to my current role at Silverpop.  I deployed a quantitative survey of marketers with 131 complete response records, broken down into 64% corporate-side marketers, 28% agency-side marketers and 8% non-agency contractors. 

One very-clear result, which I noted in a previous piece on marketing measurement and ROI analysis, was that when the group was “… asked to rate the overall ‘aggressiveness’ of their organizations’ marketing technology investments, … [c]orporate-side marketers overwhelmingly believe their organizations are not aggressive.”  This certainly speaks to the malaise inside marketing organizations when it comes to investing in and building systems for measuring the impact of marketing programs and spending.  Yet there was an interesting result when I analyzed the research in a slightly different fashion. 

When responses were correlated to where marketing technology budgets lie within an organization, a new story emerged.  When marketers are directly responsible for their spending on marketing technology, they tend to skew toward being ‘not aggressive’; however, when the budget shifts to IT or to a business unit P&L – i.e., with external accountability on this investment – the organization becomes more aggressive in its use of marketing technology.

Source: Adam Needles, Propelling Brands (original); click to enlarge graphic

The initial conclusion I took from this result was that marketers are more aggressive in leveraging technology when they are externally accountable to profitability.  But I was interested in getting more data points, and so I dug in further …

> Correlation between the traits of ‘highly effective and efficient’ marketing organizations and the calculation of marketing return on investment (via Lenskold Group / Marketsphere research):  I saw further evidence of the halo effect in the results of the recent “2009 Marketing ROI & Measurements Study,” which was led by marketing ROI guru and Marketing ROI author Jim Lenskold (and who I also cited in my previous marketing measurement and ROI analysis piece).

The study highlighted a strong correlation between organizations that measure dollar-level, net present value (NPV) accountability of marketing spending and that take on what Lenskold identifies as the traits of ‘highly effective and efficient’ marketing organizations:

[F]irms reporting that they calculate ROI metrics are almost three times as likely to report their marketing to be both “highly effective and efficient” compared to firms using only financial or traditional marketing metrics (19% vs. 7% and 4%, respectively).  As noted in the 2008 research report, the use of marketing ROI makes a huge difference in the ability to manage efficiency in addition to effectiveness. While firms using other financial metrics or traditional metrics may describe their marketing as “somewhat effective but not efficient,” the firms using marketing ROI metrics scored much higher on the combination of highly or somewhat effective and efficient (a combined 73% vs. 40% of those using traditional metrics).

The study also highlighted the gap between accountability practices of both highly effective and efficient firms and firms ‘expecting to outgrow their competitors’, versus laggards in both cases:

Looking at the analysis from another perspective, we find that adoption of marketing ROI to calculate marketing effectiveness among the top tier “highly effective and efficient” firms is much deeper at 54% compared to 23% of all other firms. Among companies expecting to outgrow their competitors, adoption is running at 30% compared to 20% use by companies expecting to grow slower than competitors.

> Correlation between the use of holistic ‘lead scoring’ and the ability to be successful in linking marketing activities to sales outcomes in the demand-generation process (via Silverpop internal research):  I used a chart in a recent presentation I gave to B2B marketers at the Online Marketing Summit in Portland and Seattle.  (BTW – I also did a blog post on this presentation on the Silverpop Demand Generation blog, if you’re interested in reading more about this.)  It provides even more evidence of this halo effect.

Silverpop did an internal survey of B2B marketers within the past year.  The questions included a focus both on whether or not marketers use lead scoring and also on their priorities as a marketer.  My colleagues’ analysis of this survey correlates the two with some interesting results. 

Of the various areas of focus, the response ‘Ensuring leads convert to opportunities’ was more likely to be selected by marketers that score leads.  This aligns with marketers that are thinking more holistically about the demand chain and focusing not as a marketer only on intermediate goals (such as leads) but also on the ultimate outcome of marketing activities … sales.  Meanwhile, more intermediate goals or further upstream goals (or not-well-defined goals) – i.e., goals that make marketers less accountable to the bottom line – correlated more directly to not scoring leads.

Source: Silverpop; click to enlarge graphic

As with earlier data points, in this case the ‘best practice’ of scoring – which requires sales accountability and collaboration between sales and marketing organization – seems to be associated with marketers that are focused on and being successful in the ‘bigger’ picture. 

Lead scoring accountability results in another halo effect.

So what are the implications of this halo effect for marketers?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue lately, and I’ve tried to present some proof points here that I find compelling.  But I guess the greatest reason why I find this halo effect most compelling is that I’ve witnessed it in my own career.  When I and my colleagues at various organizations have embraced this proactive accountability mindset, we’ve found our programs and activities take on new levels of success.

And so I’ve come to the simple conclusion that we as marketers must embrace accountability.  It makes us better marketers, and it benefits the organizations that employ us.  Realizing this is a huge step, but the payoff is tremendous.

What do you think about this idea of a halo effect?  Have you seen evidence of this in recent research or in your own career?  I’d love to get your feedback.

http://4article4addaer.wordpress.com

3 Things All Affiliate Marketers Requirement To Live Online

Every affiliate merchandiser is always perception for the eminent activity that gives the large paycheck. Sometimes they suppose it is a legerdemain direction that is pronto easy for them. Actually, it is solon complicated than that. It is honourable discriminating marketing practices that jazz been proven over life of granitic business and dedication.
There are tactics that acquire worked before with online marketing and is continuing to acquisition in the online affiliate marketing earth of today. With these top trine marketing tips, you testament be competent to competent to increase your sales and subsist in the affiliate marketing online.

What are these triplet tactics?

1. Using unique web pages to elevate each separate fluid you are marketing. Do not part all of it unitedly retributive to keep several money on web hosting. It is superior to bonk a site engrossment on apiece and every creation and thing statesman.

E’er let fluid reviews on the website so visitors testament bed an initial savvy on what the production can do to those who buys them. Also permit testimonials from users who love already proven the fluid. Be certain that these customers are many than fain to permit you to use their obloquy and photos on the site of the precise product you are marketing.

You can also pen articles light the uses of the quantity and countenance them on the website as an more attender. Accomplish the pages piquant compelling and let calls to act on the content. Each head should draw the readers to try and show much, level happening you. Spotlight your primary points. This faculty help your readers to study what the diplomatist is most and leave want to find out many.

2. Supply autonomous reports to your readers. If achievable stance them at the really top face of your diplomat so it they only cannot be missed. Try to create autoresponder messages that present be armoured to those who signal their personalised info into your signal up box. According to search, a sale is closed usually on the seventh junction with a somebody.

Only two things can perhaps bump with the web diplomatist unequaled: tight selling or the individual leaving the attender and never refer again. By placing utilitarian accumulation into their inboxes at positive given punctuation, you will cue them of the production they content they poorness ulterior and give undergo out that the understanding is enclosed. Be certain that the knowledge is directed toward particular reasons to buy the production. Do not form it undamaged suchlike a income slant.

Direction on influential points same how your fluid can play beingness and things easier and writer pleasurable. Countenance compelling subordinate lines in the netmail. As overmuch as affirmable, refrain using the order “free” because there are ease senior email filters that dumps those charitable of listing into the fling before regularize anyone metropolis them introductory. Persuade those who subscribed up for your unbound reports that they testament be absent something big if they do not work of your products and services.

3. Get the benevolent of traffic that is targeted to your set. Fair think, if the human who visited your website has no interestingness whatsoever in what you are content, they testament be among those who change on and never grow play. Compose articles for business in e-zines and e-reports. This way you can determine publications that is centering on your point customers and what you someone put up mightiness right seize their occupy.

Try to create a extremum of 2 articles per period, with at small 300-600 text in length. By continuously activity and maintaining these articles you can make as umpteen as 100 targeted readers to your situation in a day.
E’er advert that only 1 out of 100 group are likely to buy your product or get your services. If you can generate as untold as 1,000 targeted hits for your website in a day, that way you can prefab 10 income supported on the cipher statistic.

The tactics precondition above does not really sound rattling sticky to do, if you believe roughly it. It righteous requires a immature indication and an activity think on your move.

Try to use these tips for individual affiliate marketing programs. You can end maintaining a white shaper of income and surviving in this job that not all marketers can do.
Likewise, expect of the huge paychecks you leave be receiving…

Lead gen blueprints come in all shapes and sizes.  However, there are common best practices that continually and consistently work well together.  In my latest article, “Mechanics of a Lead Generation Blueprint” (as posted in the June KickStart Alliance enewsletter) I’ve highlighted aspects of both “push” and “pull” marketing activities and how they work well together to nurture prospects through the lead funnel.

This particular blueprint is centered around an upcoming webinar.  Quite often, marketers focus on a single event (like a webinar) without considering all the valuable pre- and post-webinar marketing activities and offers required to maximize the number of qualified leads surrounding this event.  Marketing is not about a singular event or activity.  Marketing is a process that must be nurtured to drive the best results.

Have a look at the blueprint and feel free to shoot me questions and comments.  I’ll continue to post various examples of other lead generation blueprints in the future.

I have heard some pretty overwhelming stats the last few days both on the web and in meetings. Consider:

• Having 30,000 followers on Twitter
• Having 100,000 people reading your blog
• Reaching “500+” status on your LinkedIn network
• Having over 1000 friends on Facebook

If the above example were just one person, using a simple multiplier and discounting for overlap, the total reach of your personal network is well north of 100,000 people.  This is a marketers dream, particularly in the B2B market where reach, particularly to decision makers, is critical to the success of any marketing initiative.

But where is the break point at which total volume begins to detract from the value of your network? And does that matter in the end?

Let’s use my cousin who just graduated from college as an example. He has 880 friends on Facebook.  Clearly he isn’t great friends with ALL of us. So if he were to recommend something on his FB feed, perhaps only 100 or 150 would pay attention since the rest are just as casually related to him.  Of those close contacts, probably only 30-40 are participants in his daily life/schedule and value the relationship to the point where they would take the tip and act on it, just because he gave it to them. (See Malcolm Gladwell’s work on “Connectors” in The Tipping Point for more on this concept)

So is his real reach 880, or 150, or 30-40? And does his ability to influence go down because most of us know that we are on the margin of his network? Or are we OK with just being a casual participant in his network and are willing to give his recommendations a shot? Or in the end does it again come back to demographics? If it’s relevant to me I listen no matter where I am on his network continuum?

We are currently ramping up an initiative focused on Ness’ Business Intelligence technology services. Part of this will be a social media playbook for our sales team to use as a guide to expand the message to their network.  My gut says the time tested metrics of reach and engagement from market days gone by will continue to hold.  If the topic is relevant to you, you will respond, if not, you won’t.

The profound difference today however stems from the fact that we can reach those 800 FB friends, or 500+ LinkedIn connections, or 100,000 Twitter followers more directly than ever before.

It will be interesting to see if it matters.

KELCURT Media is proud to announce that we are the official agency for the Premiere Spa Salon’s new commercial ‘Meditation”. Look for it on local Chattanooga COMCAST Cable stations!

I’ve been pretty heads-down over the past few weeks, analyzing the data and results from my graduate research and also working on my upcoming book.  As I’ve dug into the data, there clearly are some self-evident themes emerging around marketers’ opportunities and challenges with adopting strategic marketing systems and technologies (which I will be covering on this blog in more depth over the coming weeks).  One of the clearest themes is the great chasm that exists between aspiration and reality for marketers when it comes to marketing measurement and the analysis of marketing return on investment (ROI).

My research found that these topics are top of mind for marketers, and many state their organizations are already beginning to engage with analytics software.  When asked about tactical/operational objectives for new technology deployments, measurement and ROI analysis are at the top.  This is consistent with a new Lenskold Group / MarketSphere report, released this week.  “Current economic conditions are putting pressures on marketers to better understand their marketing effectiveness as 8 in 10 marketers (79%) report that the need to measure, analyze and report marketing effectiveness is greater in 2009,” according to the press release for the report.

Yet my research found that the same marketers give their organizations low marks on analyzing performance and overwhelmingly comment that their organizations are ‘not aggressive’ when it comes to marketing technology investments.  Aspirations are high, but the reality of investment in systems and technologies to deliver on the aspiration is low.  This also was echoed by Lenskold/MarketSphere, which further commented in their release, “[B]udget pressures are evident with 6 out of 10 (59%) indicating that this higher demand for measuring marketing effectiveness is not budgeted for … .”

The reality is that marketers cannot get enough of systems and technology to tackle measurement and ROI analysis; they have barely scratched the surface.  Far from solved, this is an issue that has only become more important and yet more complicated over time.  Customer channels are exploding in number, and yet marketers are incapable of delivering measurement and ROI analysis that takes this new reality into consideration.  “Buyers are multichannel beings.  Buying cycles are cross-channel,” comments Akin Arikan in his recent book, Multichannel Marketing.  “Yet online and offline marketers still perform their measurements of success in isolation.”

So what are marketers’ aspirations; where is the disconnect; what are their challenges; and what are potential strategies for overcoming these challenges?

To examine this issue, I’ll present some in-progress findings from my own research and compare/contrast this with recent research findings and advice by others who study the topic.

What are marketers’ aspirations for marketing measurement and ROI analysis, and what is the disconnect with reality?

Marketers’ current challenges with measurement and ROI analysis is a story that really requires some digging, because at a surface level, it appears that many marketing organizations have these bases already covered.

As part of my recent graduate research, I deployed a quantitative survey of marketers with 131 complete response records.  Within this group, 64% were corporate-side marketers, 28% were agency-side marketers and 8% were non-agency contractors – a good mix.

Among the corporate-side marketers, I asked them to rate their current level of deployment with a variety of types of key marketing technology platforms.  Cursory inspection indicates a skew in deployment of ‘analytics software’ (see dashed line, below) toward ‘high’/'very-high’ levels, only surpassed by deployment levels for ‘traditional Internet marketing platforms.’  This would seem to be a strong statement that marketers are at an advanced state of deployment, right?

Source: Adam Needles, Propelling Brands (original); click to enlarge graphic

This also seems to hold true when corporate-side marketers are asked what tactical/operational objectives are driving their current marketing technology deployments.  ‘Measure marketing results’ and ‘provide insight into marketing ROI’ bubbles to the top of the list of top objectives.

Source: Adam Needles, Propelling Brands (original); click to enlarge graphic

These responses, above, are consistent with another survey, conducted by the CMO Council, which noted, “More than half of the executives surveyed (55.1%) identified tracking performance, effectiveness and efficiency across the marketing organization as a primary benefit of [marketing automation] solution implementation … .”

This does not speak, though, to the current levels of marketers’ investments in the underlying platforms and infrastructure to tackle measurement and ROI analysis.  In fact, when marketers are asked to rate the overall ‘aggressiveness’ of their organizations’ marketing technology investments, the true reality starts to manifest itself.  Corporate-side marketers overwhelmingly believe their organizations are not aggressive.

Source: Adam Needles, Propelling Brands (original); click to enlarge graphic

What does this have to do with measurement and ROI analysis?  The first two charts identify platforms and objectives where marketers currently have committed resources; however, this tells nothing about the total level of commitment of these resources.  The third chart points to what is certainly an underwhelming investment overall and, presumably, in measurement and ROI analysis.

I dug deeper in qualitative phone interviews with marketers, and the comments were very telling.  Some of the comments by marketers, explaining the reality of their situation, included:

• “Having a closed loop reporting system on leads that come in from multiple sources would be great, but we don’t have this.”
• “To be able to look at referral sources, and the value of those referral sources based on actual customer spending would be great.”
• “Our ability to track or even approximate marketing ROI is the biggest hole we struggle with today.”

The ultimate goal of measurement and ROI analysis should get to the root of whether and to what extent marketing investments are leading to revenue and profit growth for the company.  Yet this is where the chasm between aspiration and reality is the greatest. 

A 2008 Lenskold Group / MarketingProfs special report, “B-to-B Lead Generation:  Marketing ROI & Performance Evaluation study,” showed that only 27% of general marketers and 26% of B2B marketers calculate profitability metrics, including net present value (NPV), for marketing campaigns and/or investments.

What challenges are contributing to the chasm between marketers’ aspirations and their realities for measurement and ROI analysis?

Neither systems nor technology seem to be the culprits when it comes to the chasm between aspiration and reality – i.e., marketers do not lament that these capabilities are not currently available to them.  The larger issues seem to be budget to invest in systems and technologies, as well as organizational dynamics and the relationship between marketing and other functional areas within companies.

> Budgeting for systems and technologies:  The ultimate bottleneck in delivering measurement and ROI analysis clearly seems to be funding.  Despite being asked to deliver more transparency than ever before, marketers are not being provided with sufficient budget to invest in the systems and technologies to deliver continuous measurement and ROI analysis.  This was a key finding of the Lenskold/MarketSphere report, cited above. 

A related finding from my own research is that marketers struggle with making the case for ROI for the underlying systems and technology that might deliver marketing measurement and marketing ROI analysis.  Ironic, but true.  When asked what prevented marketers’ organizations from being more aggressive with investments in marketing technology, some of the responses included:

• “The biggest barrier is cost.”
• “It’s difficult to show the ROI and payback period for implementing such systems.”
• “Not enough foreseeable benefit or ROI to legitimize purchase to CFO for future marketing automation needs.”

> Making ROI tangible; linking measurement to goals and objectives:  There is no question that budget is a key challenge; however, in many ways budget may be the red herring.  Perhaps one reason for seemingly inadequate funding – which may be linked to the comments about not knowing how to prove ROI on investment in these systems and technologies – is marketers not really knowing where to begin.

David Raab talks about this challenge and also helps to tackle this issue in his recent book, The Marketing Performance Measurement Toolkit, in which he argues for a simplification of ROI analysis.  “Many marketing measurement applications simply produce reports for managers to review.  But others feed directly into ongoing business processes, such as media purchases or offer selection,” observes Raab.  “Knowing exactly how participants will process the data gives a concrete understanding of what data they need.”

What is the real objective of your measurement and ROI analysis efforts?  How will the output of such analytics be used, and how will you subsequently tune your marketing investments?  This should guide the approach.  In fact, an outcomes-based posture may even help narrow the scope … and, thus, the cost … of marketing systems and technology investments related to measurement and ROI analysis.

> Making marketing metrics organizational metrics:  Some of the fight over marketing measurement and ROI analysis is really the age-old struggle of the functional company versus the process/customer-oriented company (with the latter being the more enlightened view, I’ll add).  Let’s be clear, marketing metrics are business metrics; they are not separate; and initiatives for measurement and ROI analysis should be an integral part of efforts to build a balanced scorecard for the company.

“A balanced scorecard and strategy map … provide excellent reference points for measurement projects intended to show that marketing is aligned with company strategy,” points out Raab in his book, cited above. 

It’s also worth pointing out that ROI analysis – especially if it is a complete, NPV calculation – is inherently a holistic measurement.  NPV looks at all of the inputs and outcomes of a given marketing activity and discounts them according to the time horizon, and this involves data and inputs from functional areas outside of just marketing. 

Thus, a major barrier to measurement and ROI analysis, as well as an opportunity, is linked to the functional silos of information and activities inside a company.  Tackling this problem holistically – i.e., breaking down the barriers between functional areas within companies and taking a cross-organizational approach to performance metrics – offers benefits beyond merely improving analytics and, in fact, leads to broader transformation of (and synchronization within) the business.

What are strategies for jump-starting measurement and ROI analysis initiatives?

Here are some initial thoughts to get you going …

> Focusing on increasing revenue and profitability versus merely decreasing cost:  Marketing is the combination of activities that ideally increases the overall opportunity for companies … finding new markets, new customers and new opportunities for income and margin.  Yet too much of measurement and ROI analysis seems to focus on taking the cost out of marketing – treating it as though marketing is the problem, not the answer. 

The 2008 Lenskold/MarketingProfs study, cited earlier, speaks to this reality.  Nearly three-quarters of marketers in the study were not focusing on the profitability/NPV of marketing investments, instead they were focusing on cost containment and/or non-financial metrics. 

All the systems and technology in the universe cannot improve measurement and ROI analysis if your underlying impetus and perspective is off.  If a measurement/ROI analysis exercise inside a company is focused merely on cost containment or on non-financial metrics, without any grounding in resultant NPV, there is a bigger issue to tackle.  And getting alignment around the NPV of marketing investment is a crucial first step.

> Securing agreement across the company on marketing measurement and ROI analysis objectives:  Agreeing across the entire management team, not only on the analytical processes, calculations and data to be used, but also on what constitutes a win versus a loss on marketing investments, is critical to successful measurement and ROI analysis.  What NPV is expected from marketing investments, and how does this compare to other potential activities by a company?

Pat LaPointe talked about this in a post on his Marketing Measurement Today blog back in January.  He had spoken with a number of CMOs from major companies and said one of the top four measurement challenges marketers are facing in 2009 is “Lack of clarity – not having a specific definition of what they’re trying to measure, and getting lost in the ambiguity of the process.”  He echoes that it is important to “… define and prioritize the key questions you’re trying to answer BEFORE you set out to measure them.”  And he also advocates these objectives being a company decision, not merely objectives of the marketing organization.

That is why it is critical, as a first step, to secure agreement across the company – most importantly, across the key functional representatives on the management team – before investing in systems and technology to deliver marketing measurements and ROI analysis.

> Baking measurement and ROI analysis into all stages of the marketing process:  Measurement and ROI should not be one-time activities, and they shouldn’t only occur only at the front or the rear end of a marketing program.  They should be continuous; they should constantly be ‘in-process.’  The whole point is to steer the ship and to tune the outcome of marketing activities and investments.

This is why IBM executive Sandy Carter, who published a marketing book profiled in a Q&A on this blog earlier this year, advocates for  a more holistic approach.  “Build a marketing dashboard,” argues Carter in her book, “not a single ROI calculation.”

Also, this stable of analytics should provide visibility into the hierarchy of marketing activities and should analyze not only the entire marketing investment but also the stages of conversion – e.g., going from number of e-mail opens in a campaign to click-throughs on an offer.  These conversion metrics are a critical part of an overall closed-loop analysis system and enable marketers to pinpoint defects in the process. 

> Dedicating systems, technology, staff and other resources to measurement and ROI analysis:  This final recommendation is in fact more than really a recommendation, it is the next step in jump starting your measurement/ROI analysis programs.  Once you have the right mind set, organizational buy-in and thinking about closed-loop analysis, you’re now ready to take your program to the next stage.  And that requires dedicating systems, technology, staff and other resources. 

If you are dedicated to measurement and ROI analysis, it should be a dedicated line item on your overall list of marketing activities – either as a portion of someone’s role or as a dedicated activity, unto itself.  Research shows that organizations that dedicate resources and staff to measurement and ROI analysis ultimately are more successful.

“Firms with marketing operations [teams/functions] tend to have greater adoption of marketing ROI measurements and strengths in ‘using customer analytics to improve marketing effectiveness,’ ‘having data, facts and insight to better guide marketing spending decisions’ and understanding profit drivers to prioritize current budget,’” observed Lenskold/MarketSphere in the press release on their new study (cited above).

In fact, this final topic probably deserves its own post.  So, for now, we’ll say that this topic is to be continued …

Digital Media and Traditional Media: Will it Blend?

May 19, 2009 4:46 PM, By Dave Friedman

An example of an awareness / thought leadership marketing program. Click to enlarge the image.

One of the most common types of marketing programs are the “awareness & thought leadership” programs.  This specific program has the objective of focusing the company on the business and solutions topics the customer cares about.  Instead of immediately diving down to the feature-rich technical jargon, this program marks an important step to communicating to customer executives that we truly understand their business issues.  It positions us as business partner, and thus allows us to take a consultative approach in dialoguing with customers and prospects. 

Reading left to right, notice that we’ve identified the intended target audience on the left.  (Personas would have been developed in detail prior to designing this blueprint.)  Across the top, the customer’s buying behavior has been listed — in this case moving from “awareness” to “interest”.  The first step of expressing interest is usually seen in the prospect searching for information.  (This is not an comprehensive example; other forms of engaging in awareness and interest activities will be covered in future posts.)  Like branding, this type of program is best viewed as an ongoing investment in creating and maintaining “aircover” for your marketing efforts that will frame specific product launches and promotions. 

Each box in the blueprint references a “theme” and the “marketing methods” (i.e. articles, Web, executive presentations) used to communicate the theme.  We cast our net wide by starting with business topics that should appeal to both the CIO and IT director.  Popular themes can be thought of as the “what” themes: — What industry trends will influence the industry? or What impact can we expect the current economy to have on consumer behavior?  or What are the three primary investment priorities for telco CIOs in 2010?  For best results, a company may have one or two business themes that will be explored all year.  It’s best to be focused.

Next, we move on to solutions-based themes.   Think of these topics as “how” themes — How will companies balance containing costs while protecting the network? or How are companies maximizing the ROI of their outsourced functions and programs?  These topics tend to get more specific in prescribing a criteria for success.  For best results, a company may entertain 2-3 solutions topics that support each business theme, per quarter.  This allows additional solutions topics to unfold over time, thereby providing flexibility to leverage new product launches and current events that may impact buyer behavior.

Notice that in neither the business-topics nor the solutions-topics  have we put our product in the headline.  This is important.  The value that your company brings is in sponsoring these topics and providing business and solutions savviness.  Via your sponsorship, customers will make the connection to your products and services.  Like chapters in a book, these discussion topics will build and evolve each quarter, providing rich content for prospects to review and respond to. 

But our marketing efforts are only just beginning.  Ultimately, the best qualified leads are the ones who seek us out.  So, we whet their appetite with our business and solutions topics, and we give them an opportunity to raise their hand to request more information.  And, we’ll be on the look out for prospects who exhibit certain behavior based on the topics they find of interest and the information they share with us along the way.  (I’ll share some best practices on establishing lead qualification criteria and scoring in a later blog post.) In either case, we’ll be ready.  That’s when our demand generation programs kick in and we actively confirm that they are indeed qualified as we quickly stream them through the sales cycle.

Next month I’ll share an overview of a couple of blueprints for demand generation programs.

For more information, please read Marketing Campaign Development.

My recent blog post on the inbound marketing / marketing content management crowd has gotten me thinking quite a bit about the holistic lifecycle of leads and of the role of marketers in this process.  The rapid ‘death’ of the consultative sale means that marketing organizations increasingly are playing a more-pervasive role in the lifecycle of leads – blurring the traditional lines between marketing and sales organizations.  “Who builds a [target] list, is it a sales person or a marketing person?” posed Rand Schulman, CMO of InsideView, in a meeting with me in his office in San Francisco a little over a week ago.  Good question.  Also, how should this list be built?

The new marketplace reality requires marketing organizations and their technology systems to be more engaged than ever before in all aspects of lead generation and of lead nurturing.  Thus, an emerging key partner for marketing organizations is the growing roster of what I refer to as the ‘online compiled lead sourcing providers.’  The roots of this category are grounded in the world of opt-in target list builders, prospect data miners and syndicated lead directory/database vendors – this traditionally included firms such as Dunn & Bradstreet (D&B), as well as media organizations and the credit bureaus.  This industry has evolved, though, and it increasingly looks more different than it once did, with an explosion of new market entrants and of new techniques for sourcing and aggregating prospect insight.  Today this emerging group includes firms such as Demandbase, idExec, Jigsaw, Lead411, NetProspex, OneSource, SalesGenie, Selectory (a D&B company), Zapdata (also a D&B company) and ZoomInfo.

It’s a pretty exciting time for this segment, but it’s worth tempering the excitement a bit – making sure we’re analyzing these providers in the context of where they fit into the overall marketing mix.  As with any new data or system provider in the world of Marketing 2.0, these providers are not a panacea.  Leads can come from many sources, and it’s important to recognize the trade-offs.

Source: Adam Needles, Propelling Brands (original); click to enlarge graphic

The new marketplace reality, thus, also requires marketers to assess all of their lead-generation-oriented marketing programs against a number of alternatives and in the context of the net impact of these programs.  As I was thinking through this, I built this chart to conceptualize the landscape.  On the x-axis I have made a relative assessment of the net credibility various programs bring in the eyes of the prospect – i.e., the degree to which a lead is pre-disposed to being interested in that brand-company and a relative indication of how hard marketing and sales will have to work to nurture a lead.  On the y-axis I have made a relative assessment of the net estimated cost per lead of different types of lead-generation-oriented marketing programs.  In doing so I considered both time and money, as it is critical to look at both.  For example, inbound marketing may have low dollar cost but it is not a no-cost activity; successful content and engagement requires time and energy, which translates into real dollars via salaries, overhead, etc.  This is why I have it at roughly the same cost level as paid sourcing.  What do you think about this matrix and where I’ve placed various types of marketing programs?

I hope this framework helps you better think about where the online compiled lead sourcing providers fit into the mix and provides a frame of reference as you dig into the status of this segment.  I believe it is particularly instructive because it speaks to some of the opportunity for evolution in this segment and is indicative of the segment’s overall trajectory – particularly predicting moves that will help improve the net credibility of leads while maintaining low net cost per lead.

So what’s new with the online compiled lead sourcing crowd, and how do we break down the vendor landscape?  Moreover, how are they innovating to keep pace with the tidal wave of change in integrated marketing management technology?  And what does this mean for marketers?

As I indicated earlier, there certainly is a lot of activity around this segment, and my goal with this piece is to get my arms around the key points.  So I’ve done my usual research; however, a few highlights include:

• I reviewed a report by Ruth P. Stevens and Bernice Grossman, titled “Online Sources of B-to-B Data:  A comparative analysis,” which helped me break down the current community of lead sourcing providers and better understand the rapid evolution of their capabilities.  (If you are a marketer evaluating providers I highly recommend this report, which has a very thorough and thoughtful methodology.)
• I also got a deeper picture of how the industry is evolving via my conversation with Schulman at InsideView as he outlined how his company is hoping to change the dynamics of lead sourcing and qualification through greater value-added content and context.

You will notice as we dig into this segment that a key trend is the blurring of the line between these providers and the integrated marketing management platform providers, particularly advanced CRM.  For example, in January I noted in a blog piece that SugarCRM had announced its new Cloud Connectors, which allow the platform to tie into the systems of lead sourcing providers such as Crunchbase, Hoover’s, Jigsaw, LinkedIn and ZoomInfo.  The other key trend seems to be the increasing granularity of insight and contact information provided – drilling down more accurately and in a more targeted way than ever before to improve the value of prospect information to marketers and to raise the net credibility, as identified above.  So let’s dig in …

What is an online compiled lead sourcing provider, and how are they differentiated?

At their core, these providers are all aggregators of individual and corporate information.  They aggregate this information into compiled records for individual people and individual companies, and they sell these compiled records to marketers that are trying to reach specific segments of people and companies.  And to improve the efficiency of access, they make it available online – through a browser and increasingly through common ‘Web services’ APIs.  This is where the similarities among these providers end.

What differentiates one provider from another is its sources, its aggregation methods and the relative degree to which it keeps its compiled records up to date.  For example, let’s take a look at four popular but different providers and how they approach their businesses, in their own words (courtesy of the report by Stevens and Grossman, cited above):

• Jigsaw:  “Jigsaw is a user-generated B2B database built and maintained by its … B2B community members (marketers, sales, recruiters, analysts, business owners).”
• NetProspex:  “NetProspex, is a … sales contact trading system that uses the power of the Internet to let sales and marketing executives buy or trade business contacts.  All user-contributed contacts are validated before being published.”
• OneSource:  “OneSource combines and organizes content from over 2,500 information sources supplied by 50 content providers creating an unequalled information resource. This includes public and private company profiles, executives, corporate families, industries, financials, news, analyst reports and trade and business press articles.”
• ZoomInfo:  “Because ZoomInfo crawls the Web 24-hours-a-day, 365-days-a-year, we’re able to deliver customers the freshest business information available.”

This cross-section of information on providers speaks to the fact that this is a complex segment, which requires that marketers first, get to know their provider before engaging their services and second, ensure that the nature of a given provider’s approach is really a fit with the marketer’s objectives for pursuing third-party sourced leads.

What are the plusses and minuses of using this source of leads, and where does it fit into the marketing mix?

B2B sales guru Mac McIntosh explains in a blog post last year, “Your in-house database of customers, sales rep additions and past inquiries is often your best source of new business sales leads.  /  However, business-to-business marketers often need additional companies and contacts to market to in order to get enough qualified leads into the sales pipeline.”  This is where online compiled lead sourcing providers serve a very real need. 

Stevens and Grossman provide additional insight into the importance of using third-party lead sourcing for B2B marketing through their report, cited above.  I think their comments also would apply in direct marketing to high-value B2C prospects:

Compiled data is critically important to B-to-B marketers for two reasons:

1. Business marketers tend to target relatively narrow audiences.  Compiled data, built from such sources as government records, telephone listings and credit data, generally provides better breadth of coverage, compared to response files. For example, not all machine tool manufacturers will appear on the subscriber files of, say, American Machinist magazine.
2. Each account has a high revenue opportunity, so it’s important to gain access to every potential prospect.

The final major ‘plus’ in partnering with a third-party provider is their ability to add additional insights beyond the basic contact information.  This is a critical capability of services such as Jigsaw and ZoomInfo, and it is the focus of value-added providers such as InsideView.

So the key gap filled by lead sourcing providers is two-fold:  (1.) expanding the number of contacts on the overall prospect list for marketing programs and (2.) deepening the level of information associated with each to improve the effectiveness of marketing segmentation, targeting and execution.

The obvious drawback of any type of third-party-sourced lead is that it is probably still a ‘cold’ lead from a sales perspective, as hinted at in my earlier chart – pointing to the low net credibility for this type of lead.  Without any pre-existing relationship, context or brand awareness, the likelihood of success in directly reaching out to the lead is very low; moreover, outreach via mass e-mail may be limited by government regulations, such as the Can Spam Act. 

“Just because you can now order or append email addresses, doesn’t imply that you will be well-served by blasting out emails to prospects,” comments direct marketing agency principal Robert Lesser in a recent blog post.  “Most of our clients are disappointed with this tactic.  A more rewarding approach is to call the prospect and then send a 1to1 sales-style email that is personalized to the prospect.”

Your problem also may not be that you need more leads, it may be what you’re doing with your existing leads.  Laura Ramos of Forrester commented in a Q&A with BtoB Magazine, “Instead of trying to find new ways to reach untapped buyers, B-to-B marketers need to put the process, technology and discipline in place so they can track prospect interactions over time, assess their level of engagement and continue the dialogue with them by offering relevant content and information.”  This is where demand generation and marketing automation/EMM can play a critical role in lead qualification, lead nurturing and the personalization of communication and offers.

Lesser’s and Ramos’s comments also speak to the underlying role of third-party sourced leads and of e-mail in the overall marketing mix.  Marketers need to invest in programs that will build brand equity and awareness at a broad level, especially via thought leadership initiatives, and that will catalyze a relationship between the brand-company and the prospect at an intermediate level, especially via events and promotions.  This should exist alongside direct, brute-force contact and will serve to amplify these efforts.  This integrated effort is what is most critical, and one cannot achieve maximum success without the other two.  (In fact, I recently saw some data from P&G that indicates that when they run integrated multi-channel campaigns – syncing advertising, promotion, in-store, etc. at the same time – the combined ‘perfect storm’ provides additional gross sales lift from 15 to 25%.)

Also, marketers need to operate in a multi-channel fashion, anyway, given that customers today make buying decisions cross-channel.  Akin Arikan explains in his recent book, Multichannel Marketing, “[W]hen we aggregate the behavior of groups of buyers, it becomes clear that certain channels are more typically frequented during certain stages of the customer life cycle.”  He notes that channels such as broadcast, out-of-home, events, product placement, Web ads, blogs and search, “… are best at attracting potential buyers but not so apt at converting them to customers and maintaining an ongoing relationship.  The latter purposes are better achieved through …” channels such as Website, e-mail, mobile, direct mail, call centers, stores/salesforces and service teams.

Ramos provides additional validation of Arikan’s point of view in the same Q&A, cited above: 

Our research shows e-mail is not as effective for new customer acquisition or for building awareness. Of the 212 b-to-b marketers who responded to a survey we fielded last October, 85% said they use e-mail in their marketing mix. Of these, only 18% said they found it highly effective for building brand. In contrast, 56% said that they felt e-mail was highly effective for communicating with their existing customers. If you establish a relationship with a prospect or customer, then e-mail is welcome communication, not spam.

Merely having a large number of potential leads does not in any way guarantee success.  There is still quite a bit of marketing ‘polish’ that it takes to turn leads from third-party providers into customers.

How are these providers innovating?

Back to the topic of this segment’s evolution and overall trajectory … here are some of the key areas of innovation I’ve noticed through my research:

> User-based record updating:  Lead sourcing providers are increasingly harnessing social media, social networks and user communities to ensure that records are up to date, as opposed to the type of intelligent guessing that many traditional direct marketing providers still engage in to match record information. 

Jigsaw is one example, which leverages its user base for adding and updating contacts.  This also is an integral part of the approach taken by NetProspex.  ZoomInfo, meanwhile, leverages a blend of Web crawling and allowing individuals to update their own records, much like on LinkedIn, which is also getting in on the game.  The SugarCRM Cloud Connectors announcement, above, included access to LinkedIn for lead sourcing and updating. 

The key differentiator of user-based record updating is not only accuracy, but also relevance.  Relying on people who actually know the contact (or may actually even be the contact), versus a common/public database, has the potential for much more accurate and relevant results.

> Cloud access and live contact updates for basic CRM and integrated marketing management platforms:  A major area of innovation is in re-architecting how marketers access the data of lead sourcing providers — moving to a cloud services / Web services model.  The idea is that of simplifying the interface with live data (via common cloud/Web APIs), allowing marketing organizations to easily port this data into their basic CRM systems and/or their integrated marketing management platforms — which is the core of the SugarCRM announcement, cited above.  This way marketers can either populate new target lists or update existing contact lists.

This concept is at the core of the rollout of Jigsaw Clean about 18 months ago.  The company’s press release from when it first launched this service explains:

Jigsaw Clean periodically scans a company’s CRM database in order to update and augment out-of-date contacts. It finds, flags, and deletes dead records by comparing the database to records in the Jigsaw graveyard … . The system also automatically identifies and removes duplicate records. Using the Jigsaw directory as a reference, Jigsaw Clean updates inaccurate data and augments incomplete records with up to date information such as direct-dial phone numbers, email addresses and titles.

> Multi-channel crawling and contextual insights:  Why rely purely on public records or traditional address lists when the Web freely offers a wealth of information about prospects, often self-updated – particularly via social media?  Moreover, what more can you learn about leads that takes your insights from pure demographic information to more-contextual ethnographic and behavioral insights? 

This is, in part, the concept behind InsideView, which is partnering with contact record providers, such as Jigsaw, and then adding additional content and context to improve insight into the prospective leads.  (Note, I have excluded them from the peer group of online compiled lead sourcing providers, given they are value-added and partners with this segment.)  As I mentioned earlier, I had a great conversation with CMO Schulman a little over a week ago, and much of what we discussed really focused on improving the conversion of leads via online compiled lead sourcing providers – a push toward improving the ‘relative truth’ of lead information.

“The more I know about you and the recency of that information, the higher propensity I have to convert to a sale.  It’s personalization,” commented Schulman to me.  He went on to say, “So what we’re doing is we’re raising the conversion rates to revenue because we bring more relevant information to [marketing and sales] users.  Essentially you have to think of us as the Bloomberg terminal for sales and marketing people.”

There’s more under the covers, but that’s the gist.

What’s next for providers in this segment?

Per my earlier comments, I believe that a lot of the innovation and trajectory in this segment is being driven by two factors:  a push towards integration (especially with integrated marketing management platform providers) and a drive to improve the net credibility of leads (through greater accuracy, more content/context and better targeting).  This will continue to drive evolution among providers in this segment and are the key capabilities marketers should use to assess potential partnerships with these providers.