B2B Lead Blog

Tellabs is a global communications equipment company supporting telecom leaders such as AT&T, CenturyLink, Verizon and Telefonica, and it’s able to hold its own in a cut-throat marketplace with competition up to 30 times its size.

“Tellabs is playing a David and Goliath game,” admits George Stenitzer, Vice President of Communications, Tellabs. “And content marketing is the slingshot that gives us a fair advantage.”

The rock in that slingshot is controversy.

“We want thought-provoking content: the kind of content that if you discussed it with your prospects in a crowded room, it should inspire an argument,” Stenitzer explained.

He cited the company’s study, The End of Profitability.

“We had a number of meetings with other industry analysts who did not share the point of view that we had in our report. They got in my face and said to me, ‘Look, your reports are all wrong. We have been following this industry for years. We don’t see anything like that coming. What are you talking about?’”

He walked them through Tellabs’ thought processes and the trends the company saw coming.

“What we found was in the course of those meetings, people were surprised,” he said. “Their eyes were opened. They gained a point of view that they had not seen before,” he says.

These kinds of conversations have helped Tellabs to:

• Attract prospects outside of its traditional marketplace, such as Google, government agencies and utility providers using the same services as telecom companies. This has created a multi-million dollar pipeline of pending deals every year.
• Gain worldwide industry attention. For instance, Tellabs is the only telecom company to have two stories featuring its content listed among the top 10 most-read stories for Total Telecom, an industry magazine serving readers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Here’s an overview of the steps the team at Tellabs takes to develop and distribute thought-provoking content:

1. They work with their public relations agency, one that specializes in the telecom industry, to come up with ideas which:

• Relate to their audience’s most pressing issues and problems.
• Point directly to Tellabs’ solutions.

They spend two months bouncing these ideas off professionals inside and outside Tellabs – from Sales and Marketing to industry analysts and journalists to customers. Stenitzer then has several face-to-face meetings with the public relations agency to hash out final ideas.

2. Once they choose an idea, they submit a request for proposal to identify an analyst firm to build a study around it. The selected firm spends several months doing research on the topic – including interviewing Tellabs customers. Actual customer quotes are always a part of their study. It’s a process that takes several months.

3. They develop how they will tell the story beyond the report itself. This includes news releases, videos, infographics, executive summaries, magazine articles and blogs.

“It will save you a lot of work if you use your industry analysts and journalists to do the thinking, questioning, writing and framing of the issues in your study,” Stenitzer advised. “Our industry journalists are well-known and respected by readers; they know how the industry works – there’s a lot of expertise we capture there.”

Stenitzer hires industry journalists for this purpose.

4. They don’t give everything away. Instead, their goal is to pique prospects’ interests to learn more, because the only way they can do so is to set up a meeting with Tellabs.

“We’ve turned content marketing into something that helps Sales get their job done,” Stenitzer said.

Related Resources:

Content Marketing: Slow, steady pay off for manufacturer

Content Marketing: 5 questions to ask subject matter experts to get the ball rolling

Content Marketing: A process for evaluating content channels

Content Marketing: 3 tips for how to get started

Content Marketing

If you think that using websites for lead generation is for other businesses, but not yours, consider GHT Limited.

This regional mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) engineering firm, like its competitors, had considered its website a glorified brochure, but certainly didn’t believe it could drive opportunity.

Having conducted business in the region for nearly 50 years, GHT was certain any fresh opportunities would come through its well-established community relationships.

Ami Kelly, GHT Director of Marketing and Business Development, walks us through the steps she took that ultimately transformed this mindset and turned an outdated brochure website into an opportunity generator.

1. Attain buy-in from leadership.

This is a given, and it was easy for Kelly because when she was interviewing for her position, the company’s website crashed.

“I said, ‘You have got to update your website now because it doesn’t work. Furthermore, it’s so out of date it doesn’t match your internal culture or the fantastic projects you are doing.

“I was amazed that the firm was working on some of the biggest projects in D.C. and was very innovative, yet had a website that spoke to none of that,” she explains.

Lesson for job-hunting marketers: If a company’s website needs help, diplomatically share your ideas for enhancing it, and make sure leadership is aligned before you join a company. If they disagree, it may be a red flag that you could be setting yourself up for failure by working there.

2. Prepare an RFP.

   • Do your research. Kelly hadn’t worked on a website since the beginning of her career. To determine what would be best to include, she reached out to other marketers through the Society for Marketing Professional Services and reviewed requests for proposal (RFPs) submitted by other marketers to its online database.
   • Involve IT from the outset. “Our IT director was very involved, and he wrote the questions related to platforms,” Kelly says. “I am lucky that I have an amazingly collaborative IT director. He was very supportive, yet hands off. He basically said, ‘I’m here when you need me; let me know what you want me to do.’”
   • Keep an open mind. Kelly thought she already knew what she needed – a fresher brochure-style website. When someone asked a follow-up question on whether they needed search engine optimization (SEO), Kelly answered no. She was merely looking for a platform where she could easily update content.

     That was until a marketing agency pointed out that GHT’s website could be used for lead generation.

   At first, Kelly didn’t believe it was possible because of GHT’s limited geographic market and the fact that its sales were relationship based. The agency countered by pointing out MEP firms from outside of GHT’s geographic marketplace were coming up first in Internet searches. Meanwhile, GHT’s website was buried several pages deep. Unless a company had a personal introduction to GHT, they’d never find them online, and competitors could win the business.

   “It was a real eye-opener for both me and our leadership,” Kelly admits. “It was completely different from how we were used to doing business, and it demonstrated to us how much our marketplace had changed.”

3. Do keyword research.

GHT’s Web partner conducted keyword research to identify the best opportunities to raise GHT’s profile in search results.

Tip: Interview customers and prospects about which words they first type into Google, as recommended in this article: “8 Questions to Steer Your Marketing Priorities.”

4. Develop a site map.

GHT’s Web partner collaborated with GHT leadership to determine the site’s architecture and content. This included interviewing GHT’s principals to list their top 10 projects, how they were developed and the specific results. The goal: Make it easy for prospects to identify real-world success in the services for which they’re looking.

5. Create content.

   Kelly shares her lessons learned:

   • Immediately reach out to clients you would like to profile. Kelly waited until a description of the project was completed.

   “If I had attained their approval to be included on the website right away, the process would have moved much faster,” she says.

   • Keep the approval process short. “If it is a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ ask them to respond in a week. If they have to review copy, give them a few weeks for approval. But always give a deadline,” Kelly advises.
   • Ask for help. “I tried to do content first and then images,” she confesses. “I wanted to be in control, and that was a mistake. I finally pulled in another member of the marketing team who focuses on images and technology to support me. I wish I had used him from the beginning. If content and images had been sourced and developed simultaneously, the process would have been smoother.”
   • Specify upfront how you and your Web partner will share content. “This will prevent confusion and save time later on,” Kelly says. “Everyone will know precisely what page content belongs on and what images accompany it.”
6. Including a blog? Make it easy for your staff to contribute.

   “The focus of my coworkers is to produce billable work for their clients, not provide marketing material for me,” says Kelly.  

   She chose to create a blog that demonstrates GHT’s marketplace relevance by highlighting innovation and responding to issues customers are dealing with right now.  She often uses this material to follow up with clients.   

   “I let them know, ‘Hey, I realize this is bugging you, and I recently wrote a blog about it. Let me know how else I can continue to help,’” she explains. “It’s another opportunity to demonstrate value.”

   Here are tips Kelly follows to keep the blog fresh without monopolizing her team’s time:

   • Be a ghostwriter. Write the blog on a team member’s behalf, and, of course, allow them to edit and approve it. The blog will look dynamic with a multitude of contributors who otherwise may not participate if they have anxiety about writing.
   • Attend meetings. GHT has monthly lunch-and-learn sessions where engineers share on-the-job experiences. Kelly transforms these presentations into blog posts.
   • Pay attention and be tenacious. “If I see something on a printer that looks like it would make good blog material, I will stalk its owner to find out the back story,” says Kelly. “You really have to think on your feet and not wait for your team to come to your door and say, ‘I want to write a blog’ because it’s never going to happen.”
   • Bribe. Whenever Kelly receives an order of branded specialty items, instead of passing them out, she requires staff to come to her office and tell her about the projects they’re working on to receive one.

   “It’s sort of a barter system,” she laughs

.

The process for developing the new site, from concept to completion, took about six months. Since its launch almost a year ago:

• GHT consistently places number one in search engine rankings for critical local search terms, such as “MEP Consultants Washington DC.”

• A leading industry magazine, PMEngineer, found GHT online, featured them in its magazine, and placed GHT on its cover. Kelly uses the feature as a sales tool.

• They have received several leads through the site, including notice from a nearby city that they will soon distribute an RFP; they wanted to make sure GHT was involved. It’s an opportunity that is in process right now.

“I feel good – really good – about what we’ve accomplished this year,” Kelly says. “I am always kind of tough on myself, thinking I should do things faster or better. But I’m really trying to enjoy this because I know that there are not a lot of MEP firms that would invest the time and money in a project like this. I feel very fortunate my firm was one of them.”

Sources:

Hinge Marketing

Related Resources:
Marketing Sherpa 2012 Inbound Marketing Handbook (free excerpt)

Landing Page Optimization: 3 quick recommendations from the stage at Optimization Summit 2012

Develop a Winning Combination for Social Media Integration: 9 tips from a recent MarketingSherpa webinar

Marketing Research Chart: What are the most prevalent website optimization priorities?

Content Marketing

In this Forbes article, “Content Marketing’s Dirty Little Secret,” Patrick Spenner, Managing Director of the CEB’s Marketing & Communications Practice, expresses his concern about the amount of content required for a targeted campaign. If you are targeting four personas, he estimates it would require 720 pieces to speak to every persona in multiple channels over the course of a year. As a result, he fears marketers are sacrificing quantity for quality.

Here’s the conundrum: Spenner is at the 20-mile mark in the content marketing marathon, while too many marketers haven’t even reached the starting point. Consider this statistic from the 2012 MarketingSherpa Lead Generation Benchmark Report (free excerpt):

75% of marketers have no formal lead generation strategy.

To develop 720 pieces of content without any formal lead generation strategy is like attempting to run a marathon with only one shoe. You’re not going to go far; one doesn’t work without the other.

Furthermore, to draw the analogy out to excruciating lengths, it’s like expecting a first-place finish from someone who trained by planting herself on a couch and eating bonbons for a year.

A lesson on pacing yourself

That’s why, when Tracie Manor told me how she moved forward this year with the first-time efforts of her content marketing and lead nurturing for SICK, a manufacturing company, I couldn’t wait to share her story. The public relations, advertising and communications editor is:

1. Starting off slow and testing to make sure she’s heading in the right direction
2. Proving to her leadership that content marketing works

She’s accomplishing this with whitepapers: not 720 of them, not even 20, but just 12 – one whitepaper a month for 12 months. Get this:  Each whitepaper has produced the same number of leads, if not more, as a trade show, but at less than 10% of the investment.

Manor is looking forward to measuring the quality of these leads, but it’s too early to tell.

“We haven’t gotten that far down the road yet., but we’re definitely going to look at the type of lead and see if there are better leads coming from whitepapers. All of these things factor into the marketing mix when you’re deciding where to put your money,” she explains.

Here are the basic steps she took to begin her foray into content marketing:

Step #1: Review existing content. SICK’s material was heavily product focused and had a global perspective, as SICK is a German company. She wanted to base content on the needs of the company’s North American customers, so Manor knew she would have to create content. She chose whitepapers because of their educational nature and ability to reinforce the organization’s expertise.

Step #2: Gather ideas. Manor met with division managers and sales managers – those who were on the front lines with the customer – to find out customers’ most common complaints, problems, issues and challenges.

Step #3: Refine them. Manor polished these rough ideas by meeting individually with product managers. From these conversations, she developed highly detailed whitepaper outlines.

Step #4: Think forward.  “In the back of my mind, I’m always thinking about what kind of lead we would like to get back. ‘Do we want to receive a lead back that is at the 50,000-foot level or the 5,000-foot level?’” Manor explains. “This helps formulate the direction of the whitepaper.”

Step #5: Identify writers. Even though Manor is an editor and has a journalism background, she didn’t have the bandwidth to write the whitepapers herself. So, she needed subject-matter experts who could write well.

She prefers technical journalists over internal engineers.

“If you have an engineer who has the time, (and) can write a compelling, non-biased whitepaper that isn’t so technical that most people can’t understand them, you have a rare commodity,” she says.

“Journalists, on the other hand, are accustomed to writing documents that are non-biased and educational. They know how to do research and ask the right questions,” Manor continues. “They bring another level of expertise that you’re likely not going to get with an internal engineer.”

To find subject matter experts in SICK’s industry – sensors, safety systems and automatic identification products for industrial applications – Manor turned to the trade magazines where her company regularly advertises. She sought out writers who:

• Demonstrate expertise as whitepaper authors.

“Always ask for samples,” she advises. “Just because someone can write an article doesn’t mean they know how to write a whitepaper.”

• Demonstrate expertise in the topic.

“To write about machine safety, for instance, you have to find someone who is expert because there are so many regulations and standards; they need to be familiar with those. You also don’t want to jeopardize anyone’s safety,” she explains. “It’s imperative the writer knows the industry extremely well.”

Step #6: Provide a detailed outline. Manor emphasizes, again, that it should point to what kind of lead you want to get back.

“Make it very clear that while you will appreciate any sort of industry knowledge they can provide and perhaps additional ideas for an introduction, they are not to go off topic,” she points out.

Manor learned this the hard way when a whitepaper veered off in a total different direction, and she had to rewrite it.

“Now I’m crystal clear on the direction and the target audience,” she says.

Step #7: Set limits. Manor limits whitepaper length to 1,200 to 1,500 words for which she pays $1 to $1.50 per word.

“We feel three pages or less are more easily digestible; the reader won’t bail out before the end.”

Here’s an example: Easily Solve Three Common Quality Control Problems in Packaging with Vision Sensors

Step #8: Distribute it even without (gasp!) a marketing automation tool or the perfect CRM software. Here, Manor once again turns to trade publications that send an email to targeted subscribers inviting them to check out the whitepaper.

While Manor’s approach isn’t as sexy or by-the-book as 720 pieces of content sent by marketing automation to four personas over several months, it does make content marketing accessible for the 75% of marketers who are struggling with the concept of lead nurturing and content strategy.

Manor is using tools and resources she already knows and has; she didn’t want to wait for the money to get marketing automation tools or hundreds of pieces of fresh content. And, chances are, considering the realities of this marketplace, it would have been tough to sell this to her leaders without proof that the investment would pay back.

Thanks to her whitepaper campaign, however, she’s off and running, gathering proof that content marketing pays off, and she couldn’t be happier.

“When I learned about the intricacies of lead nurturing at the MarketingSherpa B2B Summit 2011, I couldn’t wait to get started,” she recalls. “I was so pumped! It was like, ‘Wow! Marketing can finally prove how it’s directly impacting sales revenue.’”

Related Resources:

How Content Strategy is Transforming an Entire Marketing and Sales Organization

Content Marketing: 3 tips for how to get started

Content Marketing: Mindjet’s infographic strategy boosts blog traffic 420%, Facebook views 313.4%

Communicating Value Helps Double Inbound Leads and Increase Revenue, Site Traffic and More

Content Marketing

Mobile marketing for B2B is one of the newest marketing channels yet, according to the 2011 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, it ranks second only to whitepaper downloads for growing B2B email lists – even though only 48% of the B2B companies responding have a mobile version of their website.

“As more businesses target marketing to mobile, I expect even better results,” says Meghan Lockwood, MECLABS research analyst.

She will be moderating a panel discussion, Integrating Mobile Campaigns for the Complex Sale, at the MarketingSherpa B2B Email Summit this Wednesday in Las Vegas.  I caught up with her to preview the discussion and reveal what she expects to be some key takeaways.

“There’s an immediacy to mobile that captures an audience as they move through their day, especially busy executives. However, before investing in mobile marketing it’s critical that you thoroughly know your funnel and your key value proposition, and how mobile can advance that,” she warns. “You must be very strategic because marketing to mobile users isn’t inexpensive or easy; you have to code for viewing content on every platform you are targeting – from Droids to iPads – and codes vary by operating system. You have to know what your audience is using and how they’re using it to make sure the investment pays back.

“However, as you can see from the results of the B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, companies are already using mobile to inform and support other marketing channels, and are getting great results,” points out Lockwood. “Considering less than half of B2B marketers are embracing mobile, there is real opportunity for those who know how to strategically use it. After all, the first to engage a customer through a new channel is often the one who makes the greatest impact.”

She will expand on these thoughts with panelists Nick Fuller, Director of Strategy & Analytics, eDialog; Josh Herman, Vice President of Product Strategy, Acxiom Corporation; Kate Williams, Consultant to T-Mobile, and R.J. Talyor, Director of Product Marketing, ExactTarget. The conversation will include:

Integrating mobile with other channels. “Complex sales have a longer gestation period and some are very content-based; which requires nurturing and repetitive touches with content like newsletters and whitepapers,” says Lockwood. Reading them on a small screen can be next to impossible, so she advises giving prospects the option to forward the content to their tablet or laptop for review later.

Analyzing existing customers’ usage. “For a few companies, creating an app that can make their customers’ jobs easier, such as ordering inventory immediately from a job site, could create powerful brand engagement. These organizations will literally be at their customers’ fingertips all of the time. Of course, I can’t emphasize enough that you must make sure your audience will use an app before taking the time and money to develop it.” Lockwood points out. “However, mobile is a great tactical tool for learning more about your customer – technology can track location, phone type, links clicked, time spent on content, and more.”

Knowing what your audience is seeing. “You must have first-hand understanding of the full user experience,” insists Lockwood. “Test your mobile marketing campaigns on yourself. Know how long they take to load. Know what your email looks like on mobile. After all, according to Return Path, that’s how almost a quarter of your audience is seeing it – they say that 23% of all email is viewed using a mobile device.”

Testing. “Mobile marketing is still in its infancy, so it’s smart to begin with a clear objective and measure its effectiveness in achieving it,” she notes. “For instance, at the Summit, Silverpop is having a contest leveraging its new PlacePunch platform. Attendees who check in via mobile from certain locations and activities can win an American Express gift card. They’ll get an introduction to PlacePunch and Silverpop will build their list.

“Best practices will emerge over time. In the meantime, be strategic about your mobile marketing activities, and test them so you know precisely what works and what doesn’t,” she advises.

Do you think your marketplace is ready for mobile marketing? Why or why not?

Are you using it already? If so, tell us how – what has worked and what hasn’t? We’d love to hear from you.

If you can’t attend the conference and are hungry for more mobile marketing advice, whet your appetite with  MarketingSherpa’s 30-Minute Marketer: How to Use Mobile for Marketing: – 11 Quick Tactics for Taking Your Marketing Strategy Mobile.

Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Event Marketing, Marketing Strategy

I can’t stress this enough: when it comes to marketing, if we’re not constantly learning, we’re going to find ourselves left behind faster than ever.

Some people say I’m an expert in B2B lead generation because I wrote a book on it, but you know what? I am astonished by what I didn’t know then compared to what I know today. This past year has been especially illuminating thanks to the brilliance of smart marketers who are expanding and perfecting the lead-generation concepts I wrote about years ago.

This year’s B2B Lead Roundtable webinars are testament to that.

In February, Paul Teshima, SVP of Product Management at Eloqua, set the tone for the webinar year. He defined the tenets of the new world of marketing in Revenue Performance Management. “We’ve seen a problem now where, even though marketing is doing a great job of generating leads, sales still cannot handle the volume and they slip away,” explains Paul. “Some of the leading companies today are really focusing on this idea of managing and bringing marketing sales together, in a more effective way, now that they’ve solved some of the tactical problems.”

Paul explains how here: The Future of Marketing: The Evolution from Demand Generation to Revenue Performance Management

In March, Michelle Mogelson Levy, Associate Vice President of Global Marketing at ECI Telecom, detailed how she executed an ultra-successful content strategy campaign and how that transformed their entire marketing strategy.

“We had to put ourselves in line with our buyers’ journey so we knew how to engage them at the right level,” she points out. “We had to provide value to our prospects, who have never heard of us before, and position ourselves as a company that understands their marketplace and their business issues – a partner as well as an expert.” Learn more here: How ECI Developed an Entire Content Marketing Program from Concept to Completion and the Surprising Results

In April, John Johnston, eBusiness Marketing Manager for Volvo North America, outlined how he streamlined, integrated and automated lead generation for a marketing program for 20 different heavy construction segments for dealers in 125 countries.

“We took online marketing activities, leveraged their analytics and optimized – measure, take action and repeat. It’s a continuous loop that makes the database and the lead-generation process better and better.”

Watch the webinar to find out how John’s efforts are providing customers and prospects the precise information they need to make a smart purchasing decision, and dealers a much more detailed, useful picture of who they’re selling to. And much of this is happening in real time. Learn more here: How CRM Revolutionized Marketing and Lead Generation at Volvo North America

In May, Brandon Stamschror, Senior Director of Operations for MECLABS Leads Group, and I expounded on the powerful combination of excellent data and the human touch to make the best use of sales time and resources.

According to MarketingSherpa, 80% of marketing leads are lost or discarded because even though someone may have provided basic contact information, they may not be ready to talk to a salesperson. Teleprospecting bridges the gap.

Make sure you’re setting a strong foundation for your campaigns with an accurate list. Brandon revealed the outcomes of a breakthrough experiment that tested how higher cost/high quality lead data affected the cost per lead. The results were astounding – the difference between the best- and worst-performing lists was $581 per lead. Learn more here: Teleprospecting that Drives Sales-Ready Leads and How One Company Slashed Their Cost Per Lead by More than Half

In June, Sergio Balegno, Director of Research, MarketingSherpa/MECLABS Primary Research Group, shared why inbound marketing – a strategy where the prospects find you as opposed to you finding them – is critical, and how integrating social media and SEO drives it.

“Companies with integrated social media and SEO achieve 60% better conversion rates…Search rankings are driven by relevance, relevance enhances an organization’s credibility, and this credibility helps to drive conversion rates,” says Sergio. “It’s an essential ingredient to a B2B marketing program.”

To prove it, Sergio shared five steps that helped an email marketer pull in 70% more leads and doubled revenue in one year. Learn more here: How to Integrate Social Media and SEO to Drive More Leads and Increase Marketing ROI

In July, Dave Elkington, Chairman and CEO of InsideSales.com, revealed how companies are leaking significant revenue in their sales and marketing funnels – knowledge gained through analyzing two billion communications with 80 million customer profiles. He outlined astonishing facts like 43% of companies don’t even respond to inbound leads! But for those that know how to respond, the opportunities to make the sale grow exponentially – 78% of sales goes to companies that respond first, not to the company with the best or cheapest product.

It’s no wonder that Dave points out that venture capital firms want companies in their portfolios to have inside sales departments. “They’ll recruit, train and transplant inside sales teams into their portfolio companies,” he says. For more data that will show you how to speed leads into your sales pipeline, go here: Research from Harvard, MIT Pinpoints Hard Lead Conversion Lessons with Easy Solutions

Find out how:

• Clarifying value proposition helped one company decrease cost-per-acquisition by 66% and multiplied monthly profit four times over
• Re-engaging clients helped one company attain grow its business by 64%
• To quickly and easily choose the best lists
• To time lead-generation activities to attain the highest possible return on investment of resources
• Closed-loop feedback makes sales professionals worship their marketing department

Find out much more here: Finish 2011 Strong: Six Funnel Focal Points to Maximize Time, Resources and Revenues Part 1 and Part 2

It all came full circle in October, when Jen Doyle, MarketingSherpa Senior Research Manager and Lead Author of the 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, discussed what more than 1,745 marketing organizations had to say about their lead generation efforts in 2011.

“It’s increasingly challenging for marketers to achieve success, and challenges are growing in pertinence year after year,” she explains. “Perceived effectiveness of tactics is declining severely. It’s getting more difficult to achieve the same results from the same marketing activities.”

She points out, however, that may be due to the fact that marketers still aren’t optimizing their funnels:

• 68% haven’t identified their sales or marketing funnels.
• 61% send leads directly to sales.
• 79% haven’t established lead scoring.
• 65% haven’t nurtured leads.

Learn how to make 2012 a better year here: 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report: How Marketers are Transforming Mounting Pressures, Challenges into Revenues.

We are in the process of planning our 2012 webinar year. What would you like to know more about? What information would help you generate more leads? How can we help you stay on top of lead-generation innovations? Leave a comment below.

B2B Telemarketing, Content Marketing, Inside Sales, Lead Generation, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Lead Scoring, Leadership, Marketing Strategy, Social Media, Thought Leadership

If you’re struggling with managing social media programs in the B2B marketplace, Zuzia Soldenhoff-Thorpe  (pictured at below) has some news for you: Most of your peers are too.

Why is she so certain? As a research manager for MECLABS Conversion Group, Zuzia spent two full days at MarketingSherpa’s B2B Summit in San Francisco providing one-on-one coaching to some of the nation’s leading B2B marketers. (Read more about who attended here.)  
Here’s what she has to say about her experience.

After my time in San Francisco, I am further convinced
social media is one of the most
challenging channels for B2B marketers to manage. It’s so unpredictable, yet there’s so much pressure surrounding it – everyone feels like they need to be on every social media channel or else. And there’s so many people claiming to be social media experts,  but don’t just blindly follow their advice. You see, I don’t believe anyone can be a true social media guru because there are constantly new ideas, platforms and  methodologies.

In fact, you could make a full-time job out of monitoring the hundreds of social media blogs and attain hundreds of different opinions on what you should be doing with your social media program. It’s no wonder marketers feel overwhelmed. 

So what’s a B2B marketer to do?

•  Know your audience. Where are they gathering online to learn about your product or services? Do they have favorite publications or platforms they turn to for industry information? For instance, an engineer may have a Facebook profile, but is he really on there to learn about the newest technology?

Fact is, you can never know your audience well enough. This was driven home to me when I had the privilege of spending more than an hour in a coaching session with the head of marketing for a European bank. He revealed to me the details of what should have been a highly successful social media campaign targeting a Scandinavian country. His bank invited fans of a super-popular European sport to submit a video depicting their passion for it to the bank’s Facebook page. Winners received prizes like a week’s stay at a five-star hotel in Abu Dhabi, meeting a star athlete, cash awards and free gear. They blasted online and national TV advertising everywhere throughout the country. They even had 150,000 page views. But alas, only a handful of people people submitted a video.

He was flummoxed. “What could I have done to make it a success?” he asked me.

There really was nothing he could have done, except understand that his audience was more private than other cultures. Apparently, no matter how passionate they are about a sport, his audience clearly wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of displaying that passion to their entire nation.

• Know what your competitors are doing. Analyze and monitor their social media. Learn from their mistakes and successes. Watch what’s being said, and where, about your company, product or service.
   
• Begin with a blog. Why be on social media if you don’t have anything to say? A blog is the means to provide meaningful information your audience will care about and a vehicle to distribute it to other social media platforms. You don’t need to write all of your own content. You can repurpose relevant content you’ve already created – this could be whitepapers, articles, and news releases. Use one of your public relations professionals or a freelance journalist to interview experts within your organization and write a blog post on their behalf. Use guest bloggers or provide content from a third-party source that’s respected in your field.  
   
• Consistency is critical. Make social media the responsibility of one or two people in the organization to maintain a uniform voice and image across your platforms. However, be sure to encourage as many people as possible within your organization to engage, post comments, promote your posts and spread your message.
   
• Because social media is so unpredictable, test and test some more. Is your audience paying attention and what are they paying attention to? Social media was created so people could engage and interact online, so it’s easy to ask and respond to questions, post polls, and conduct surveys. Don’t miss out on this unprecedented opportunity to identify what your audiences wants to see, read and receive.  

Again, developing, managing and monitoring social media is the bane of too many B2B marketers’ professional lives. It doesn’t have to be.  Don’t be overwhelmed by the newest advice from a social media guru.  Be strategic and selective.

What challenges have you faced launching B2B social media campaigns? How did you handle them? We’d love to know. And, if you want to learn more about how to make social media drive real opportunity for your organization, I strongly recommend you subscribe to the MarketingExperiments Blog which reports the latest from real-world marketers on what works – and what doesn’t – in social media, email marketing, content strategy and more.

Content Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Social Media, Weblogs

I just got back from this year’s round of MarketingSherpa B2B Summits in Boston and San Francisco, where I provided one-on-one coaching to attendees, marketers from Fortune 500 organizations, leading private companies, and emerging businesses. (You can read more about who attended here.)

Frankly, I don’t know who walks away more enlightened – the marketers I was coaching or me. Every year, I receive a personal introduction to the struggles they’re facing every day. And even though the latest MarketingSherpa B2B Marketing Benchmark Report essentially reported that it’s tougher than ever to be a marketer, you really can’t grasp how challenging it is until you’re working one-on-one with someone who is essentially a lone ranger for marketing within a large, complex organization.

Here’s what I learned during my coaching sessions this year: to advance in this economy, the C-suite absolutely must recognize the value of marketers and marketing. As part of that, they must give them the time and resources to set the foundation for best-in-class lead generation efforts. Especially considering that, year after year, attaining the highest quantity and quality of leads consistently remains marketers’ highest priority – just check out the graph at right.

Unfortunately, after too many coaching sessions with marketers who had neither the time nor resources to set strategy, I suspect too many CEOs think that most of what they learned in the marketing 101 course they took decades ago still applies today. The reality is (forgive me for preaching to the choir) is that marketing has been transformed in the past ten, even five, years! In fact, as with most everything these days, change is the only constant and you better keep up, or else. You can thank the cut-throat economy for that.

Revenues are scarce. So smart organizations are scrutinizing how they’re spending every penny of their resources. They want to make sure their highest-compensated sales professionals are spending their time closing the biggest deals they can, not qualifying leads or prospecting. They know that’s marketing must lead the way in ensuring this happens, so they allow their marketing organizations the time and resources to set the foundation to do so effectively and efficiently.

Their CEOs establish the directive for marketing to develop:

• A Universal Lead Definition (ULD) that prioritizes and defines the degree of a lead’s sales readiness, and requires the input and buy-in of both the sales and marketing teams. Learn more about creating ULDs here: Lead Generation Checklist: Universal Lead Definition.

• An Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) that uses the unique attributes of prime customers to prescreen potential opportunities. ICPs identify decision makers and key influencers, and ultimately serve as the basis for defining a sales-ready lead. Learn more about developing an ICP here: Lead Generation Checklist: Ideal Customer Profile.

• Accurate, manageable data that details the contact information of prospects who fit the ULD and ICP. Learn how data can make or break your marketing efforts here: Do You Expect Your Inside Sales Team to Practice Alchemy? And here’s a webinar replay that examines the power of data: Teleprospecting that Drives Sales-Ready Leads.

• A defined marketing and sales funnel that spells out specifically when a lead should be passed along to sales, or sent back to marketing for further nurturing until they are ready to move forward in the buying process. Read more about that here: Four Reasons why Funnels are a Marketer’s Best Friend. Or watch our most recent B2B Lead Roundtable webinar: How Marketers are Transforming Mounting Pressures into Revenue.

• A clear, concise value proposition. Read more here: Why a Value Proposition Makes Marketing Good.

Unfortunately, very few marketers I spoke with in Boston or San Francisco had the executive support to set this foundation for  marketing success. So it became challenging to provide advice that would lead to sustainable, long-term optimization. Nonetheless, we had plenty of “ah-ha” movements. But those quick wins were often centered on strategy designed to circumvent or overcome a flawed foundation. This felt like the equivalent of telling someone what color to paint the walls on a building with a crumbling infrastructure. After all, you can have the perfect messaging, but if that message is going to a list that’s filled with inaccurate data and contacts, or doesn’t include those who are most likely to buy, you’re wasting time, energy and money.

So what did I tell those marketers?

For the most part, I advised them to do what they could with what they have.

• Even without executive support, marketing can document the state of their current lead management process; and they should do so immediately. Without precisely knowing what’s happening with leads right now , marketers can’t identify the greatest bottlenecks or areas for improvement. But they can’t make any assumptions. This mean they need to meet with their sales and marketing leaders, along with their practitioners. Only then will marketers have a clear understand of the current state of affairs. By the way, getting all of the stakeholders together to agree on the issues and prioritize solutions is the perfect start to a funnel optimization process.

• Even without executive support, marketing usually owns the data. They can make sure it’s up to date and free of duplications. They can quarantine new data before it’s entered into the system to ensure its accuracy and make sure they’re valid leads. They can analyze and clean their lists to ensure that messages are targeted to those who are most likely to buy.

• Even without executive support, they can analyze their existing customers to create an ICP.

• Even without executive support, they can build a content library. They don’t need to be great writers; they just have to understand their value proposition and personas, and then repurpose existing content or identify third-party content that fit both. That’s not as overwhelming as starting from scratch.

• Even without executive support, marketing can demonstrate their value to sales through only sending them qualified leads. If marketing delivers a great “product,” sales will want more.

When sales begins noticing that they’re closing more deals faster, they’re going to be eager to collaborate, revenues will grow, and leadership will fully realize the value and power of marketing. After all, businesses that thrive in the new economy will be the ones that give marketing the time and resources to set the strategies upon which successful campaigns are built.

Content Marketing, Lead Generation, Lead Management, Marketing Strategy, Thought Leadership

I have a confession: you know the cliché about the cobbler’s kids? I’ve been there and done that. And you can see proof of it back in April, 2009, when I blogged about how to best leverage LinkedIn as a lead generation tool.  Step five was “create your own LinkedIn group and share relevant content.”

The problem was that my company at the time, InTouch, which became a part of MECLABS this year, didn’t have its own LinkedIn Group.  My message to my blog readers should have been, “Do as I say not as I do.”

I knew, having advised my readers to start a LinkedIn group, that I should at least consider doing the same. But I wanted to make absolutely sure that whatever I created would contribute value that couldn’t be found anywhere else. Why add to the noise?

So I began perusing groups in earnest. Surprisingly, I couldn’t find any one, at the time, that was completely dedicated to lead generation. Okay, let me qualify that – one that was completely dedicated to lead generation without self-promotion drowning out discussions that addressed real issues. That was the gap that needed to be filled, so three weeks later I launched the B2B Lead Roundtable.

Today, we’re celebrating its second birthday, and I am proud to say we are on the verge of 8,500 members. In fact, I expect that we will reach and exceed that milestone this week.

I am also glad that the B2B Lead Roundtable became what I had hoped: a forum where professionals can share their questions and insights without being inundated with people trying to sell them something. Instead, they’re given legitimate, compelling feedback from professionals who genuinely know what they’re talking about.  That’s probably because the vast majority are seasoned executives.

Read more…

B2B Telemarketing, Content Marketing, Current Affairs, Lead Generation, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Lead Qualification, Lead Scoring, Leadership, Marketing Strategy, Social Media, Thought Leadership, Web/Tech

If you’ve been following the B2B Lead Blog for a while, you might recall this post, inspired by a spirited LinkedIn B2B Lead Roundtable Group discussion about whether social media truly delivered ROI.

The official verdict from MarketingSherpa has just arrived, in the form of their third annual B2B Social Marketing Benchmark Report. A compelling aspect of this report is that it compiles the survey responses of thousands of marketers – 3,342 to be exact – in more than 150 charts and analyses. One of those charts, at right, looks at the ROI they’re getting from their social media efforts. It certainly is a study in contrast:  more than 1,000 responded that they are achieving at least a 150 percent return on investment.  Yet, at the other end of the spectrum are another 635 or so who aren’t seeing any return at all.

Nonetheless, I am still impressed by social media’s rapid monetization. As Sergio Balegno, Director of Research for MECLABS, the parent company of MarketingSherpa,  MarketingExperiments and InTouch,  stated in January’s post, “In just a couple of years, social media has rocketed to a place that took the internet a good decade to arrive at.”

While the 2011 Social Marketing Benchmark report looks at real-world case studies and campaigns, it also dives deep into how organizations are calculating ROI – what costs they calculate as an investment, and how they measure their return.  If you’re curious about what others are doing in the marketplace to drive and measure social media success, you’ll want to learn more: http://www.sherpastore.com/SocialMarketingBMR.html

Finally, is it surprising to you that there are so many marketers reporting a high ROI on social media? Why or why not? Let me know in the comments below.

Content Marketing, Lead Generation, Marketing Strategy, ROI Measurement, Social Media

Watch our latest B2B Lead Roundtable webinar for a powerful case study on how to execute content marketing strategy in the real world and discover how it can build powerful alignment between sales and marketing.

View webinar replay:

How ECI Telecom Developed a Content-Marketing Program from Concept to Completion and the Surprising Results from B2B Lead Roundtable on Vimeo.

View and download slides only here

I met Michelle Mogelson Levy, Associate Vice President of Marketing Programs for ECI Telecom, when she served on my panel at MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit in January. She had the floor for just 10 minutes to present her company’s content-marketing strategy. But what she had to say, even in that short time, was so rich with actionable takeaways that she definitely deserved more time to share her story.

That’s why I invited her to present at this month’s B2B Lead Roundtable webinar. Michelle candidly revealed what it takes to drive results through content marketing in the real world. She explained why it’s critical to:

• Deeply understand your potential customers, what they want and when they want it, and gain alignment around that from your entire organization.
• Identify each piece of content you have and how it fits into each turn of the buying cycle. She explains why it took four interns 10 months, as well as the input of the entire sales and marketing organization,  to complete that process at ECI.
• Provide information responding to business issues your prospects are facing and why it’s smart to leverage third-party resources they respect to do so.
• Repurpose content if you have limited resources and how to go about it.

Well, I could go on and on, but I recommend that you review the webinar video above, even if you’re not directly involved in content marketing. Here’s why: the process of executing a content marketing program is transforming ECI’s entire marketing and sales organization, making them more aligned and responsive to customers’ needs and each other.

In, literally, the last minute of the webinar, Michelle explained what she considers one of the greatest benefits of her content marketing strategy: sales alignment. Every week, she meets with sales teams worldwide to discuss what marketing is doing.

“It’s critical they understand our activity,” said Michelle, “The emails that were opened, what was sent…showing them the value marketing can provide and aligning our whole process with sales activities.

“This is one of the hardest alignment programs I’ve done, but one of the most beneficial…You can see from the beginning where you generated that lead, how you nurtured that lead, when you passed it to sales, how they accepted it. And now we’re seeing real opportunities that have come as a result of those marketing-sourced leads.”

Read more…

Content Marketing, Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Lead Scoring, Marketing Strategy, Sales Leads, Thought Leadership, Webcasts/Webinars, Webinar Replay