My Top Resource Picks for B2B Demand Generation Marketers

March 11, 2011

With these five resources in your pocket, you’ll never lack for B2B inspiration or guidance.

By now it’s probably no secret what some of my favorite sources are for B2B wisdom; they’re the ones I tend to point to as the kickstart or backup for many of my own observations. Here’s why I believe these five sources are so highly relevant to our day-to-day demand gen activities.

1. MarketingSherpa, for the stories.

Sherpa is my go-to resource for case studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of various marketing strategies. I also appreciate their Chart of The Week for its convenient at-a-glance delivery of a new marketing gem every Tuesday. (Plus it’s a great example of content atomization: each chart links to and is repurposed from a longer Sherpa piece.)

Chart of the Week: Emailing to house list both highly effective and commonly used

Sherpa offers a combination of open access content and subscriber exclusives, with a focus on B2B as well as other forms of marketing. Although you can glean a lot from their free articles (which are typically offered with 10-day open access), I think subscribing to Sherpa is very worthwhile for any marketer.

2. Chris Koch’s B2B Marketing Blog on ITSMA, for the savvy and spirit.

Among the growing pool of B2B researchers and bloggers, I find Chris Koch to be one of the most original and inspiring. At times, his posts are even a little provocative; see “Should we stop marketing to the CIO?” and 2011: The year of personal brands” for examples of his willingness to open and explore subjects many B2B marketers would secretly love to debate, but hesitate to stake an online opinion on.

No one beats him for revealing smart truths about substantial B2B tech issues, in particular.

3. SiriusDecisions, for the deep research.

If you were getting an MBA in B2B marketing today, this is who you’d want to write your course material. “Focused on operational intelligence,” the SiriusDecisions analysts  put a lot of proof behind their observations and advice. In a way, they’re the opposite of MarketingSherpa: SiriusDecisions gives you a broadly and deeply researched view of B2B, while Sherpa gives you the nutshell view that can sometimes be easier to relate to.  I believe both views are essential to get the whole picture of B2B marketing as it changes and grows.

4. BtoB magazine, for the skinny.

My primary news source for B2B happenings. Indispensable for keeping up with the who-what-when-where of B2B.

5. The people around me, for the unexpected.

It’s all too easy to regard anointed experts as the only legitimate sources of inspiration in our business. But to ignore the people around you, and the work they do, would be a costly mistake. Keep your eyes and ears open for inspiration from your creatives, admins, techies, sales force and fellow marketers—your colleagues are the often-overlooked low, hanging fruit of inspiration.

6 Comments | Content Marketing, Demand Generation, Lead Generation, Online Media, Thought Leadership | Permalink
Posted by LaurenOnDemand

How to Use Social Media Tools for B2B Demand Generation

March 7, 2011

St Mary's Church Weathervane, Edwinstowe

Here’s a refreshing guide for “how to use social media in B2B that does not involve talking about the specific tools,” but rather explains what to do with them.

Here’s a good one from Chris Koch, a leading B2B researcher and blogger for one of my favorite resources, the Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA). He starts off with three directives you may already be familiar with:

  • Monitor. Find and track the relevant conversations in social media and online.
  • Engage. Take an active role in social media by engaging with customers and influencers in the various forums where conversations are taking place.
  • Manage. Take an active role in facilitating and managing conversations, such as creating a blog or community.

No surprises there…but Chris breaks out detailed tasks under each of these headings. The result is more of a map than a signpost to B2B social media success. Here’s another excerpt:

Monitor

  • Track conversations about your company.
  • Develop a target audience. Discover customers and prospects that are most relevant for your offerings by observing the patterns and topics of their conversations.
  • Discover influencers. By monitoring conversations online, we can find the people inside and outside our companies that say smart things.
  • Gather research. Search tools can help you mine the data.
  • See the distribution of conversation. Some monitoring tools let you segment the different types of social media to determine where conversations are happening.

And there are five more action items under “monitor” alone, and much more analysis under all of the action items in the article. Good stuff.

Of course, we all have to decide exactly which form of social media will help us achieve our specific demand generation objectives, but digging into this meaty outline of B2B social media action items now will ensure you’re well-prepared to go the distance at any time.

  • Monitor. Find and track the relevant conversations in social media and online.
  • Engage. Take an active role in social media by engaging with customers and influencers in the various forums where conversations are taking place.
  • Manage. Take an active role in facilitating and managing conversations, such as creating a blog or community.

Leave a Comment » | Content Marketing, Demand Generation, Digital Marketing, Online Media, Relationship Marketing, Social Media | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by LaurenOnDemand

To Facebook or Not to Facebook? Pros and Cons for B2B Demand Generation Marketers

March 3, 2011

no evil

Let’s clarify the B2B concerns around investing our time and targeting in Facebook.

Ahh, Facebook. So big—over 500 million users and counting—and yet so small in terms of what it offers B2B marketers. Or is it?

The answer is mainly a matter of opinion and case-by-case analysis rather than the outcome of solid research. Like every social media investment choice, “It depends.”

Yes, we can refer to reports like the Global Social Media Check-up 2010 by PR firm Burson-Marsteller, which notes that 54% of the Fortune 100 companies have at least one Facebook fan page—but how should that high-profile participation influence our own decisions about whether to invest time and attention in maintaining (or helping a client establish) an outpost on Facebook?

Here are some pros and cons to help you weigh the Facebook factors.

Facebook can help you if…

  • Your customers are actively consuming information on products and services like yours there. In that case, you may want to establish a presence with a fan page and keep it active with content and updated information. You might also consider advertising on Facebook to target customers with interests related to your products or services.
  • You’re a crossover brand, with a foot each in B2B and B2C. If there’s one Facebook fact everyone seems to agree on, it’s that Facebook is a mighty consumer platform. If you’re going to establish a presence for your B2C arm, it may make sense to add and maintain a presence for the business side as well.
  • You just want to listen. Monitoring references to your brand on Facebook may or may not be effective for you…I tend to think Twitter is the better platform for this. But keeping up with references to your brand on Facebook can be integrated with your other social-media monitoring activities and is not a huge extra investment.
  • Attracting user-based content is part of your strategy. If you want to your target audience to share photos, videos or experiences related to your product or service as part of a campaign, a Facebook fan page can be a relatively simple and accessible aggregator and/or promoter of such content.

Facebook won’t help you if…

  • Your target audience doesn’t research your type of product or service there. This is the best reason to leave it alone. To mangle Marshall MacLuhan’s famous proclamation: “The social media platform is the message.” If your targets don’t consider your brand to be aligned with Facebook’s, your fan page will seem like the suited-and-booted dad who suddenly starts wearing skinny jeans. No one will want to look at you!
  • You can’t commit the resources to keep your presence active. This means refreshing content at least weekly, monitoring and responding to comments and posts daily, and monitoring mention of your brand on Facebook generally. Of course, you can feed atomized content into your fan page, but it should be optimized for your Facebook audience. Just don’t let anyone persuade you that Facebook is an easy no-maintenance option. An empty fan page is worse than none.

If all else fails (or confuses!) you, let “Connecting and engaging with your prospects where they consume information” be your golden rule for any social media platform participation. My gut feeling is that Facebook is not to be ignored, but needs careful consideration (based on the factors noted above) to be successful in B2b demand generation.

Here’s a summary and link for the Global Social Media Check-up 2010.

If you’ve used Facebook for B2B marketing purposes of any kind, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

1 Comment | Demand Generation, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, Online Media, Social Media, Thought Leadership | Permalink
Posted by LaurenOnDemand

Targeting CFOs in B2B Demand Generation

February 28, 2011

Of all the buyers in today’s expanded marketing funnel, the CFO deserves your special attention. Here’s why.

Remember yesterday’s funnel?

Okay, maybe it was never exactly this simple, but 10-15 years ago the received wisdom implied that you, the marketer, were the only influence on a certain set of buyers. It was a straight shot from info to action.

Nowadays:

Source: Forrester Research

It’s pure craziness. Buyers imbibe influence from everywhere.

People are not necessarily buying less now, but the decision cycle has greatly expanded both in terms of time and the number of people involved.

So we have to be patient, and realize the value of many more people who inhabit in the funnel.

And the new key figure to watch is the CFO, or economic buyer.

As a recent Accenture study reported, the recession has thrown the chief financial officers of enterprises into expanded roles that have made them far more involved in the buying process.

“So what?” you might reasonably ask. “What sets a CFO apart form any other C-level target?”

Tom Pisello over at CMI offers a sobering answer:

“Financial executives are different than other stakeholders because their added responsibilities require them to rely on content marketing to deliver more insights, more diagnostics, more economic information and more personalized content.”

I’d say that we as demand generation marketers are off to a good start, since content marketing is such a primary focus for us already.

But now and going forward, we should:

  • Fine-tune our content strategy—from planning and development to distribution—to appeal to the economic buyer
  • Add the economic buyer to our personas gallery
  • Provide direction and content to your midlevel researcher that can help them make the business case to the economic decision maker (a good practice in any case)

See more detailed issues and suggestions around targeting economic buyers now.

Are you already targeting the economic buyer? I’m always eager to hear your experiences, so please share them in the comments.

3 Comments | Content Marketing, Demand Generation, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, Online Media, Relationship Marketing, Social Media, Thought Leadership | Permalink
Posted by LaurenOnDemand

The What-Why-When of QR Codes for B2B Demand Generation Marketers

February 23, 2011

QR Code Cupcakes

QR codes are definitely gaining a more prominent place in the B2B marketing toolkit.

Here’s a what-why-when crash course in using QR codes for B2B demand generation.

What are QR codes?

QR is the abbreviation for Quick Response, as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed. A QR Code is a 2-dimensional black-and-white image that encodes thousands of alphanumeric characters of information, including text, URLs or other data. QR codes are readable by dedicated QR barcode readers and camera-equipped smartphones.

That means mobile users can snap a picture of one of these images with their smartphone camera and instantly decode the data embedded within. (Users simply install a free QR code reader app once to enable the decoding.)

You can imagine how much more convenient it is for any user to capture a URL or digital content residing on the web in this way instead of typing in links!

Why should I focus on them now?

It’s simple: smartphones are now the norm with business executives, who presumably form a significant part of your target audience. According to recent research from Forbes Insights:

  • 82% of business executives have a smartphone
  • More than half consider their smartphone to be their primary communication device
  • 12% consider it to be their primary computing device, ahead of laptops, desktops and tablets (this percentage increases for executives under 40).

How can you lose by providing the smartphone users in your target audience, with more, and likely more convenient, paths to response? Also, Jeff Korhan of the Social Media Examiner points out that “QR codes enhance both your search engine and social media optimization. Now you can increase traffic to those searchable objects to further optimize them by encouraging more sharing.”

When should I use QR codes?

As I noted in a previous post, mobile applications are only effective when developed to support a specific audience’s needs, to meet a clearly defined goal in your demand generation program. Here are some areas in which QR codes typically deliver high value.

1.  Integrate QR codes into signage at an industry event or conference to facilitate location-based marketing, deliver information and secure lead data quickly. Here’s an example of a conference ad produced for a client, Ciena, which included a QR code leading to a mobile-friendly landing page.

The landing page featured a synopsis of a highly relevant paper and a simplified registration form for lead capture.

Once  attendees completed the form they gained instant access to the paper, which they could read at intervals, back at the hotel, on the plane…you get the idea.

The QR code made it extraordinarily easy to give attendees high-value information on the go and efficiently capture leads.

2.  Add QR codes to DM packages. This is an excellent way to drive traffic to campaign microsites and other digital information online, compared to making recipients type in URLs.

Given the high percentage of senior executives using smartphones as their primary device, they’re likely to have their phone at hand while reading mail. Any step that is more convenient for your target audience is worth adding!

You can also alternate special offers by simply linking your QR codes to new landing pages, and you can combine then with email opt-ins to build your list.

3. Encode your vCard contact data and add the QR code to your business card, making it more convenient for your targets to contact you.

I agree with Jeff Korhan’s view that QR codes “take what social media is doing well now, bringing people together with technology, and extending it to enhance the experience.” Read Jeff’s article for more in-depth information on QR codes and how they work.

5 Comments | Demand Generation, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, Online Media, Relationship Marketing, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by LaurenOnDemand

B2B Demand Generation Best Practices: Blogging to the C-Suite

February 21, 2011

c26

If you want to engage with an executive-level audience as part of your demand generation strategy, here are some excellent top tips from leading B2B bloggers.

You may want to start with the tried and true blog-building guidelines shared by Joyce Maroney of Kronos.

Joyce created her blog, Workforce Institute, to attract decision makers and influencers instead of the IT managers and developers who typically visited the Kronos website.

Engaging them with education and advice rather than press releases or brochures proved a highly successful strategy for increasing awareness and building a consistent relationship with the right audience.

I’ve read a lot of interesting articles on (and accumulated my own positive experiences with) reaching top decision makers, but I believe Maroney and Koch do a wonderful job of outlining the top six requirements:

  1. Develop a persona of your target audience and discover what it wants.
  2. Audit existing sources of information to find an area of differentiation.
  3. Create an advisory board to establish credibility and generate ideas.
  4. Monitor the internet for topical issues relevant to your target audience and create posts that speak to them directly.
  5. Create a layer of separation between the company and the blog to establish credibility.
  6. Develop an internal engine for ideas and content.

In my view, her “idea curation” was one of her smartest moves (3, 4 and 6). Don’t feel you have to generate all your blog post ideas on your own, unless blogging is about to become your full-time job! The main point is to add value by adapting ideas to your specific audience.

If #5 sounds intriguing, but unlikely for your company to accept right away, see my post on the pros and cons of cultivating your personal brand through social media, which also draws on more timely insights from Chris Koch.

Have you had great success (or not so much) in connecting with top decision makers via blogging or social media platforms? Let’s share experiences in the comments.

2 Comments | Content Marketing, Demand Generation, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, Online Media, Relationship Marketing, Social Media, Thought Leadership | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by LaurenOnDemand

Dos and Don’ts of Mobile Marketing for B2B Demand Generation

February 16, 2011

tiny micro adventure - 3rd floor

Here’s a quick three-level guide to effectively using mobile marketing for B2B demand generation—and why we need new guidance in this arena.

Why it’s time to get serious about mobile marketing.

We can’t ignore the facts: Today, B2B buyers of all kinds prefer to do their own research online before communicating with potential sellers. And increasingly, they’re doing it on the go, via smartphones or computer pads. One recent survey shows that, among B2B buyers in the IT sector alone, 55% of executives and directors research IT solutions on a mobile device. And 60% of all smartphone users surveyed said they used their phones for IT research.

But not all mobile marketing tactics are equally effective for B2B demand generation programs, and some of the more effective tactics are more urgent for us to adopt than others.

Do it always, do it now.

Optimize web sites for mobile viewing and navigation. If you’re not certain this investment is necessary, start tracking how often mobile devices access your website to build your business case for this need.

Adapt all online content for display on mobile devices, across platforms (Android, iOS, BlackBerry). Spending $$$ to create the most tightly targeted, compelling video ever won’t help you if buyers can’t view it in their preferred format.

Format emails properly for all of the major mobile devices, and adapt your messages for the small screen. Consider, too, that buyers viewing messages primarily on the go are not likely to appreciate high-frequency touches. When planning your demand generation programs, a mobile marketing mantra of “less is more” applies to buyers in all industries, throughout the buying cycle.

Give sales better access to vital information in the field. Consider the online tools and information salespeople need while out in the field and ensure they’re easily accessible and usable via mobile devices.

Do it only when it supports specific goals.

Mobile applications will only be effective when developed to support a specific audience’s needs, to meet a clearly defined goal in your demand generation program. Don’t be tempted to create them “just because.”

Location-based marketing, which pinpoints messages and services to a person’s location, have proven most relevant at events and conferences, where attendees may benefit from instant offers on-site. Providing QR codes for attendees to scan with smartphones is also very useful both for delivering information and securing lead data quickly and easily from attendees.

Don’t do it just yet. Watch and learn.

There’s a plethora of other via mobile marketing activities that we should be mindful of – and seeking applicability for in B2B. This may include activities like Mobile advertising to B2B buyers and short message service (SMS),  or text message, alerts. Both tactics are still viewed as unusually intrusive marketing touches. Additionally, the brevity and plainness of SMS make it difficult to create value compelling enough for B2B buyers to opt in to this sort of program.

Read more about digital habits in B2B IT here.
Have you had experiences that confirm or contradict these guidelines? Tell me about it in the comments.

1 Comment | Demand Generation, Digital Marketing, Online Media | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by LaurenOnDemand

Quick Quiz: Four Essentials of B2B Demand Generation Email Marketing

February 14, 2011

4 A Alphabet Blocks Red White Blue Macro July 05, 201017

Test your email marketing strategy recall with this quick quiz. Don’t peek at the answers below!

True or False:

  1. You’re mainly competing with other marketers for inbox share.
  2. You should compare your performance to your own benchmarks rather than industry benchmarks.
  3. Testing is a strategic “must.”
  4. List growth should be your primary measure of business growth.

Before you check your answers, consider this: Research by Marketing Sherpa shows that 81% of marketers have taken their email marketing in-house (13% use a combination of in-house and agency time; 4% use an agency).

Clearly, we like to have control over this important channel. But in the daily crush of priorities, it’s easy to let some of the essential principles slip our minds. So let’s see how your answers compare to some essential best practices.

  1. False. Your inbox competition is “everyone.” It’s more and more difficult to get noticed due to the sheer volume of all communications, not just the ones relevant to your field.
  2. True, especially if you want to deliver outstanding email programs, not just average ones. We all refer to industry benchmarks because they are helpful indicators of the norm; but if you aim to beat your personal best, you’re likely aiming higher than an industry benchmark.
  3. True. In an era when everyone is advocating change for change’s sake, you want to be certain you’re making changes for the right reason—to achieve results. Only If you compare new approaches against a control can you be confident that your efforts are taking you in the most worthwhile direction.
  4. False. Although growing your list is very important, unique open rates and click-through rates are better indicators of how engaging and relevant your email messages and content are to your audience—and how likely they are to result in more business.

For more detail on these answers and additional tips, see this email marketing refresher by Morgan Stewart, Co-Founder and CEO of “email-centric” marketing consultancy Trendline Interactive.

3 Comments | Demand Generation, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, Online Media | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by LaurenOnDemand

Battle of the Brands in the B2B Demand Generation Arena: Personal vs Corporate

February 11, 2011

The Web Wants YOU

Let’s explore how you can  get the support you need from your company to cultivate your personal brand through social media—and reassure them that your personal brand buildup will be beneficial to them.

In his article “Personal Brands vs. Corporate Brands,” Chris Koch asserts,

“This is the year that the personal brand begins to do battle with the corporate brand…We need to let the personal brand win—especially in B2B.” Allowing your subject matter experts to become superstars in their own right, typically via a non-company blog or other social media, “creates a virtuous cycle that links these personal brands to the corporate brand.”

This virtuous cycle includes at least two big benefits to the company:

  • Positioning company leaders as subject matter experts in their own right adds credibility to the organization and increases trust in the company brand.
  • The personal brand blog ultimately drives traffic to the company website—it serves as another channel for leads.

But, your own company might say, what if our superstar leaves the company and takes all their good traffic with them? That’s what happened to Forrester Research: Popular analyst Jeremiah Owyang joined them after his own blog had gained a large following. The brand benefits were mutual, as Chris notes:

“In the early days, Owyang’s personal blog was driven by his personal brand and enhanced by the Forrester corporate brand. First you found Owyang, and then you found that Forrester was behind him.

Meanwhile, the Forrester corporate blog that he contributed to was driven by the Forrester brand and enhanced by Owyang’s personal brand. First you found Forrester, and then you found Owyang.”

As you may already know, Owyang ultimately left Forrester for a startup, Altimeter. But from Chris’ point of view, Forrester still wins:

“Owyang’s blog is still packed full of references to Forrester and his work there…There’s a very positive association there that underscores Forrester’s ability to nurture talent.”

However, today Forrester analysts may only write personal blogs “behind the Forrester firewall” and contribute to group blogs targeting specific business lines. Effectively, Forrester co-brands their analysts. And if a star analyst leaves, it’s easier to fill the gap—right?

“From a traditional corporate branding perspective, your immediate reaction would be to expunge the analyst from your audience’s memory and start pushing the new content instead…From a customer’s perspective, I think Forrester looks better being a legacy on a star’s personal blog than having a star that leaves a void in content upon leaving.”

Companies can’t afford to default to knee-jerk traditional brand-think when dealing with all of the issues brought on by the rise of the personal brand. Your audience’s memory might be short, but the Internet remembers everything. And that’s a big reason why, as Chris says, “like it or not, the brand game has changed forever.”

I highly recommend reading Chris’ full story on “Personal Brands vs. Corporate Brands” as soon as you get the chance!

Have you faced resistance to establishing your personal brand as a marketer outside of your organization? I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments.

Leave a Comment » | Demand Generation, Online Media, Reputation Management, Social Media, Thought Leadership | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by LaurenOnDemand

Targeting B2B IT Buyers Online: Eight Tips for Demand Generation Marketers

January 19, 2011

If you’re trying to reach B2B IT buyers online—whether they’re top decision makers or influencers, at enterprise or SMB organizations—you’ll have plenty to gain from these top tips.

Freshly excerpted from research conducted by IT solutions provider Softchoice, these tips highlight North American B2B IT buyer preferences for browser research, mobile experiences, and email experiences.

1. Browser research: Become community minded.

 

 

 

 

 

Interestingly, I’ve seen data to suggest that 3 in 4 B2B IT buyers rely on IT communities for research, rather than the 1 in 4 figure presented here, but perhaps the scope of the survey or the way the question was asked produced variation in results.

2. Browser research: Cater to learning preferences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Articles, online guides and webinars top the list in this survey, with case studies near the bottom of the list. Interestingly, though, research from Marketing Sherpa shows that more marketers in the computing/software arena serve up case studies in their content marketing strategy than other marketers do (83% vs. an average of 55%).

3. Browser research: Experiment with video.

 

 

 

 

 

Hmmm…if your company has balked at the resource and time costs of producing video, you may want to show them this figure.

4. Mobile: Support research on-the-go.

 

 

 

 

Optimizing your website for mobile is quickly graduating to a “phase-one must-do” from a “someday-nice-to-have.”

5. Mobile: Determine your mobile strategy.

 

 

 

 

See above!

6. Mobile: Optimize your email for mobile.

 

 

 

 

 

There’s no mistaking mobile’s rise to prominence as a consideration.

7. Email: Don’t waste time on trivial things.

 

 

 

 

 

Relevant, snappy, educational emails are more compelling—this is a lesson we’ve (hopefully) learned to apply to all B2B buyers already.

8. Email: Solicit feedback.

Softchoice lists their favorite responses to the question “Why do you read marketing emails?” to illustrate the valuable insights one can gain by asking for (and facilitating) feedback. See the full survey,  “Digital Habits in B2B IT: 10 Tips for Marketers,” for more details on all of the insights excerpted here.

1 Comment | Demand Generation, Digital Marketing, Online Media, Relationship Marketing | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by LaurenOnDemand

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