Acquiring Minds: A B2B Lead Generation Blog

Having a blast with B2B email?

2009-06-24T21:56:00.055-04:00

When you think email, do you think email blasts?

You know - a humongous email broadcast - the digital equivalent of a large mail drop.

Otherwise known as Batch & Blast email, B2B marketers have viewed this type of email as best for retention marketing, rather than acquiring customers.

In the early days of email marketing, two powerful types of email were unavailable to B2B marketers:

1to1 Sales emails that allow sales reps to automate, personalize and track emails.
and Trigger emails that are sent in response to online & offline behavior and segmentation criteria such as the stage in the buying cycle.

But all that is changing as...

Multi-Function Email Suites dominate B2B email marketing.
Retention email marketing takes a back seat to acquisition marketing.
Marketing automation vendors are extending their applications.
The marketing automation and email vendors consolidate.

Multi-Function Email Suites dominate B2B email marketing
Although no one (except me, ahem) labels these applications 'multi-function email suites', I am using the term to describe multi-faceted marketing applications that include the functionality of the three types of email marketing that I have noted above: Batch & Blast, 1to1 Sales emails and Trigger emails. Of course, the functionality of these applications goes well beyond email marketing to include content management, web analytics, CRM integration etc.

When we surveyed 249 B2B marketers last year, we were surprised to find that marketing automation suites (or multi-function email suites) dominated the rankings of email applications.

Upshot: if you are not yet using or at least looking at these multi-function suites, you may be lagging the market.

Retention email marketing takes a back seat to acquisition marketing
With the widespread use of email filters and the need for recipients to opt-in to email communications, retention marketing has been the primary goal for email marketing.

1to1 Sales email and Trigger emails provide a level of personalization, immediacy and relevance that Batch & Blast emails cannot deliver allowing B2B marketers to target prospects, rather than just customers, with compelling emails.

The broad market acceptance of lead management and sales enablement applications is paving the way for the widespread use of 1to1 Sales emails and Trigger emails for lead generation, lead nurture and conversion.

Upshot: Marketers and sales reps now have robust email marketing tools available for lead generation.

Marketing automation vendors are extending their applications
As vendors push to increase their scale, the competition is intensifying.

Recently, Genius launched a lead management application to complement their leading sales enablement solution. While Eloqua and Marketo have launched a broadside to Genius by moving into the sales enablement space from lead management.

For a terrific overview of this standoff, read Laura Ramos' recent post on her blog. Laura is VP / Principal Analyst, Forrester Research.

Upshot: enhanced competition should provide more attractive options for buyers to buy full application suites.

The marketing automation and email vendors will consolidate
I asked Jon Miller, VP of Marketing, Marketo about how buyers will look at evaluating marketing applications:

Q: Will B2B sales or marketing teams stop buying one-dimensional email applications? i.e. Batch & Blast applications only

A: I definitely think this is true; people don’t have time or energy to cobble together piece part solutions.

As marketing automation vendors scramble to extend their applications into other types of email marketing, two analysts see the market consolidating.

In a webinar earlier this year, Alexander Drobik, Managing VP Gartner Research simply states:

In the current era of economic uncertainty and increasing IT productivity, users will congregate their IT software spend in megavendors and their ecosystems.

(For free access to the Gartner webinar slides, click here.)

David Raab, a consultant specializing in marketing technology and analysis, noted in a well-written review of Marketo Sales Insight, that the revenue opportunity on sales enablement tools will be very attractive to sales automation vendors (i.e. CRM vendors) and those vendors will 'take the business for themselves'.

Upshot: B2B marketers may find standalone, Batch & Blast vendors to be a dying breed as robust sales & marketing automation suites dominate the market. Our research shows that of the Batch & Blast vendors, it was mostly the budget-friendly vendors, who held significant market share.

(Image copyright - Fox Media. The resemblance to the author is purely accidental.)

Should marketing be compensated like sales?

2009-06-01T22:33:00.004-04:00

Should marketing carry a quota on revenue?

The answer is yes according to Joe Payne, CEO of Eloqua, a marketing automation software vendor (far left of above photo). 30% of the Eloqua marketing team's pay is contingent on Eloqua achieving its revenue objectives.

I recently spoke with Joe Payne at a panel discussion on sales and marketing alignment.

But Joe, shouldn't marketing be compensated based on sales qualified leads (SQLs) or sales accepted leads (SALs)? I asked after the panel.

Joe noted that he wants marketing to be aligned with the corporate goals. SQLs or SALs are not money in the bank. Joe's concern is that marketing is savvy and can game the system by persuading sales to accept leads.

Joe should know. Unlike most CEOs, Joe's background is in marketing with stints at MicroStrategy, Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble.

But how can marketing influence the sale after the lead has been passed? Joe believes that marketing can play a strong role by creating tools such as ROI calculators.

Personally, I would be reluctant to adopt Joe's framework especially given the high 30% rate:

If marketing was gaming the system, a high rate of disqualification of accepted leads by sales would quickly set off alarm bells for sales management and senior management.
Once a lead is passed to sales, marketing loses control of the lead. Lead leakage beyond marketing's control can take its toll: leads either contacted too slowly or not all, leads who suffer from a poor sales experience, or falsified documentation in the system indicating lead follow-up that didn't transpire. Unfortunately marketing is unable to plug these leakages that may occur in the sales department.
Marketing's role in demand creation and nurture marketing dwarfs its role in helping to close leads. Yes - marketing can influence closed sales through tools and collateral but its role is much diminished. Put it this way, if tools and collateral were that important, why do few (if any) organizations gauge their influence on the sale or ROI?
The telequalification team is not significantly bonused on revenue and is closer to the sale than marketing. According to a recent survey by Phone Works, the inside sales team responsible for telequalfication is most often bonused on the quality of leads (58%), appointments (54%), number of leads (50%) and pipeline contribution (42%). Only 35% of organizations used revenue as a factor in determining bonuses (down from 65% in 2007).

Let's be fair, especially during this recession. Give marketing a quota but on metrics within their realm such as sales qualified or sales accepted leads.

If a B2B marketer is to be measured on revenue, then call it a bonus and make it a smaller proportion of pay such as 10%.

PS. For a recent article in the Economist discussing agency compensation in the B2C world, click here.

Photo Credit: Robert Lesser's photo of (l to r) Joe Payne, CEO Eloqua Corp.; Frank Falcone, Senior Product Lead, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Canada; Ajay Sirsi, PhD, Associate Professor, Marketing, Schulich School of Business; (missing) Rick McCutheon, President, FullContactSelling (April 27, 2009).

Sales 2.0 fuels PTC's SMB Expansion

2009-05-27T17:38:00.012-04:00

As a former paratrooper, Dan Maier’s background has prepared him well for his current assignment: managing a global inside sales team of 75 reps selling a $9,000 solution to hard-hit manufacturers.

Dan Maier’s title is as long as it is deep: VP Worldwide Inside Sales & North America Mathcad Sales, PTC (see Dan's photo on the left that I snapped at the Sales 2.0 Conference in Boston).

Like many enterprise software developers, PTC has moved downmarket to sell to SMB accounts (Small & Medium size Businesses). The creation of a strong inside sales team structure complemented by sales through the channel, reflects the economics of selling profitably to this market segment. According to ChannelWeb, 21% of PTC's revenue is driven through 400 global PTC partners.

At the Sales 2.0 Conference, Dan discussed how PTC has successfully targeted the SMB space by leveraging inside sales. With $1 billion in revenue and 62,082 customers, PTC's average yearly revenue per customer, including services, is just over $17,000 (from SMB to Enterprise accounts).

PTC's Siebel CRM system covers the universe of manufacturing accounts. According to Dan, PTC is only adding a couple of thousand net new accounts per year. However, PTC needed to broaden the list of contacts at each existing account. By choosing Jigsaw, PTC significantly improved their prospect conversion rate.

The PTC inside sales team's objectives are to conduct 250 to 275 calls per week with talk time of 12.5+ hours.

After Dan's presentation at the Sales 2.0 Conference in Boston, I asked: is Sales 2.0 an evolution or a revolution?

Dan quickly answered that Sales 2.0 is an evolution. However, he is concerned that his sales team will be inundated with technology. Dan maintains that there has to be a balance between the new facets of Sales 2.0 with standard best practices and core selling skills.

When asked about whether Sales 2.0 was helping to close the gap between empowered buyers and his telesales team, Dan responded that SMB buyers are more agile and conduct more online research than Enterprise buyers. Sales 2.0 has helped PTC to close the gap with SMB buyers. However, there is not as much a gap to close with Enterprise buyers.

With half of his team of 75 outside of the US, Dan is challenged in rolling out Sales 2.0 practices in countries that are well behind the US.

Dan mentioned that there are constant challenges in aligning sales and marketing. Dan is looking for a better framework for sales and marketing to evaluate the effectiveness of Sales 2.0

Finally, Dan talked to me about the biggest impact of Sales 2.0: the metric to evaluate his telesales team has moved from tracking the number of calls to talk time. For Dan, Sales 2.0 has enabled this transition.

To view more pictures of Dan and all of the other speakers in Boston, check out my 27 photos on Flickr.

Joining Dan on his panel at the Sales 2.0 Conference was Travis Fore of Network Solutions. For my interview of Travis, please see my blog post interview of Travis Fore.

Sales 2.0 Boston Conference Links

Sales 2.0 Conference website by Selling Power

Social Networking in Sales: Show Me the Money by Anneke Seley, The Sales 2.0 Advocate blog

The Sales 2.0 Conference Post by Geoffrey James, BNET blog

"Loose Talk" at the Sales 2.0 Conference, Boston, MA by Marci Reynolds, Sales Operations blog

Sales 2.0 Lessons from the Twitteratti by Parker Trewin, B2B Marketing for Faster Sales blog

Photos of Speakers and Attendees at the Sales 2.0 Conference by Robert Lesser

Network Solutions Levers Sales 2.0 for a 360 degree customer view by Robert Lesser, Acquiring Minds blog

Network Solutions levers Sales 2.0 for a 360 degree customer view

2009-05-19T22:36:00.014-04:00

Travis Fore is in a unique position to profit from Sales 2.0. As SVP of Sales, Service and Product Delivery, Travis is responsible for the breadth of customer experience at Network Solutions.

I spoke with Travis prior to his appearance on a panel discussing 'Sales Lead Management 2.0' at the Sales 2.0 Conference in Boston.

Network Solutions has expanded its offering beyond domain registration to online services in such areas as search marketing (SEM), ecommerce, website design and hosting with customers spending from $500 to $50,000 per month. Approximately 300 direct sales reps target small businesses across the US.

One of my questions to Travis concerned buyer dissatisfaction. According to a recent survey, a large issue for buyers are sales reps who make promises that are then broken when the prospect becomes a customer.

Travis admitted that Network Solutions is still working on aligning sales and service. Travis believes that buyer dissatisfaction with broken promises is a problem with most sales channels, especially those selling complex products.

At Network Solutions, a significant amount of training is conducted with sales reps on how to set customer expectations.

A wiki has been created with Salesforce.com, Network Solutions' sales CRM system, that helps reps find answers to their questions. All collateral and training materials are posted to Salesforce.com including a one page cheat sheet with FAQ.

With Travis sitting in the middle of sales and service, he has found that he can cut through the 'BS' (note to reader: Travis is not referring to the balance sheet).

Network Solutions tracks all cancellations by reason and by solution. Travis' team can quickly determine if training is the root cause of an issue.

Travis discussed with me some of the Sales 2.0 tools that have improved his team's decision-making, lowered costs, enhanced customer value and allowed Travis to manage a widely-dispersed and mobile workforce:

Salesgenie.com has been instrumental in enabling segmentation by vertical and on-the-fly geographical proximity. A key data point provided by Salesgenie is the spend on local advertising.
CallEffect is a click-to-call and call logger that is integrated with Salesforce.com
An internally developed tool that generates a proposal based on an evaluation of the prospect's website - SEM, ecommerce, security etc.
Online contract management software

For more on Travis' panel at the Sales 2.0 Conference, tune in to this blog or my tweets at www.twitter.com/RobertLesser.

Sales 2.0 Techniques for the Job Search

2009-04-09T07:14:00.000-04:00

Usually I write for the B2B professional who is conducting lead generation programs.

Today's post is for the professional who is the program.

As an out-of-work B2B practioner, you may be looking for innovative ways to search for your next position. If you are the proverbial cobbler, you may have neglected the marketing of you.

The next generation of web applications (aka 2.0) should be very appealing to you (as it is to the resource-constrained B2B marketer): free or nearly free applications, easy and fast to get up and running and rich with interactivity and online tracking information.

Let's step through a plan to get you that job:

Goal Setting
To help you manage the roller-coaster ride of a job search, it's much easier if you can objectively look at the job search like a sales pipeline. For example, the more activity at the top of the funnel (e.g. applications and interviews with appropriate target companies) should lead to more offers.

By setting top of funnel goals it can help keep you focused even if the offers are not forthcoming. Talk to your peers and set reasonable goals for yourself. Celebrate the achievement of positive metrics.

CRM System
You will need a system to manage your job search metrics and to keep track of your progression with contacts.

A CRM or customer relationship management system will keep you organized and disciplined. An added bonus is that the use and configuration of a CRM system will give you the insight and experience of being a sales rep (where you are the product).

FREE CRM - Yes that's right - the entry level version of Salesforce.com (Personal Edition) is free.

Email Marketing
Some email marketing systems allow 1to1 emails, where an individual can send a trackable email to a prospect.

In Job Search 2.0, a trackable email will allow you to find out how many times the email has been opened.

This intelligence is invaluable as it indicates that your recipient has forwarded your email or resume to colleagues.

$99 per year - The Salesforce.com Group Edition provides trackable email.

SEO
Search engine optimization is ranked #1 by B2B marketers for generating quality leads.

Your application of SEO to your job search is similarly important.

For example, should you upload your resume to a job board or directly to an employer, keywords in your resume will drive traffic to you and in turn, will help rank your resume higher (Shall we call this JB - SEO or Job Board - Search Engine Optimization?)

For a B2B marketer, it can be challenging to determine what keywords the target audience is using to search.

Not so on job boards - you can easily tap into current job postings by employers to assess keywords.

FREE Keyword Tool - Interested in visualizing the keywords in multiple job ads? I used a free tag cloud tool Wordle to create the tag cloud (to the left) by combining the copy from three job ads on Monster.

List Procurement
The next generation of online lists favors the job searcher. No longer do you need to pay a hefty premium for minimum order sizes.

Now many lists do not require either a subscription or a minimum order. Take a look at lists such as: Jigsaw, NetProspex, SalesGenie, Zapdata and ZoomInfo.. For a recent study on online data sources, click here.

Social Networks
And of course, social networks like LinkedIn provide free contacts. However the records do not include contact information and the number of available contacts depends on the size of your network.

One of the key benefits of 2.0 tools is to track online behavior.

Did you know that in LinkedIn you can find out who is viewing your LinkedIn profile?
On the sidebar of your profile, you will find this handy widget.

With LinkedIn, you can inform your network of your job search status, ask questions of your network and the LinkedIn community and ask your network for introductions.

Blogs
As a job seeker, you are severely constrained by the amount of space on a resume.

A personal blog is a much more expressive medium to expand upon your capabilities and in a much more personable tone than a resume.

It's also a great way to demonstrate your written communication skills - essential for the marketing profession.

Video
If you a good public speaker looking to standout from the crowd, a video biography may be the tool for you.

Of all the social media tools available to marketers, blogs and video are ranked most highly by B2B marketers for lead generation.

$299 & up - Create a video biography with Market Yourself Smarter

Further Assistance
If I can be of any assistance in your job search (my focus is B2B marketing), please feel free to contact me at: robert (at) OnDemandInsideSales (dot) com

If you are a marketer that would like to help out your peer group, please leave a comment.

Additional Reading
Job Search 2.0 by Rachel Happe, The Social Organization Blog
Career Toolbox: 100+ Places to Find Jobs by Sean P. Aune, Mashable
30+ Websites to Visit When You're Laid Off by Ben Parr, Mashable
7 Secrets to Getting Your Next Job Using Social Media by Dan Schawbel, Personal Branding Blog
Job Searching 2.0: Looking for Work 'New School' by Monica Hamburg, Me Like the Interweb Blog

Comparing B2B Online Data Sources - New Research

2009-03-23T22:09:00.017-04:00

At last year's MarketingProfs B2B Forum, I met Ruth Stevens, consultant, author, columnist, educator and B2B guru. Ruth was planning an analysis of online data providers and was considering some options for structuring the approach.

Just this past week, Ruth and co-author Bernice Grossman, president of DMRS Group, a marketing consultancy, released an interesting study of major online sources of B-to-B data (Thanks to Ruth for acknowledging in the appendix my modest contribution).

As discussed in this comparative analysis of B2B data providers, the Internet has spawned new competitors like Jigsaw and Zoominfo and enabled self-service list procurement and instant download.

Ruth and Bernice asked fifteen compiled list providers to participate in the analysis and ten responded. The list providers were requested to provide counts across a variety of industries and asked to match data to ten real-world contacts that shared their contact information.

The ten providers included: Demandbase, idExec, Jigsaw, Lead411, NetProspex, OneSource, SalesGenie, Selectory, Zapdata and ZoomInfo.

Ruth and Bernice provided some observations and recommendations:

The data quantity and quality varied widely, even between providers that were subsidiaries of the same parent.
Run a test by providing a file to a number of vendors for data append.
Be aware that some vendors may be strong in some industries but weak in others.

We have experienced first-hand the differences between data providers. My organization, Direct Impact Marketing, maintains a strict privacy policy: no lists are shared between clients, so we often rent lists and then conduct lead generation programs.

I would like to share some insight that we have on working with data providers:

A breakthrough on minimum order sizes - With the advent of online data providers, B2B marketers can now order small quantities without penalty.
The temptation of batch-and-blast email - 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. 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.
One size rarely fits all - We have found that it is difficult to find one list provider that meets all of our client needs. Sometimes one data provider can provide very accurate information at the account level but the number of contacts is sparse. This is especially true when we try and target mid-level contacts. We often will merge two lists to get the best of both worlds.
Centralized vs. decentralized authority - A critical consideration is whether you are targeting centralized locations (i.e. headquarters) versus decentralized locations (i.e. branches). Should you wish to focus on decentralized locations, a response or subscription list may be a better choice, given the demonstrated affinity or interests of the contacts.
Watch out for list hustlers - If the price sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Check out the scoop on this data provider.
Just say no - Rental lists can be highly addictive. I have spoken with many marketers who would rather rent than invest the time in their house file. Once your list is of a reasonable size, you will be best served by focusing on marketing to your house file and growing that list organically.
Size vs. list criteria - Sometimes larger lists will offer fewer selection criteria. Make sure that you have prioritized your selection criteria to ensure that you get a list that fits your needs. It may make sense to pay for more selection criteria and fewer records if the list is a better match to your target market.
Ask your data provider to stop using the term 'sales leads' - A data provider is in the business of selling suspect records, accounts or contacts but not leads. For a data provider to refer to the data as 'sales leads' is mis-using a key B2B term and over promising on their product. A sales-ready, qualified lead is very different than an unqualified name on a list.

Bizzuka interviews Robert Lesser on Lead Generation on BlogTalkRadio

2009-03-17T20:18:00.016-04:00

Paul Chaney, blogger and Internet Marketing Director from Bizzuka read our report on LeadGen Tools and asked me to appear on Bizzuka's internet radio show.

John Muncell, CEO and Co-Founder of Bizzuka held a wide-ranging discussion with me for an hour.

Have a listen to this podcast on BlogTalkRadio and hear my perspective on best practices and tools for lead generation, as exemplified by our recent research on LeadGenTools.

Networking & Photos from the Sales 2.0 Conference

2009-03-09T22:03:00.012-04:00

The Sales 2.0 Conference in San Francisco was a great opportunity to chat and catch-up with luminaries from the B2B Sales & Marketing world.

The first day I sat at a table with Garth Moulton, VP of Community /Co-Founder at Jigsaw and blogger. Last fall, I had met Garth in Chicago when I spoke at a Chicago Association of Direct Marketing conference sponsored by Jigsaw. Garth and I spoke for a few minutes on best practices in using Jigsaw.

During the reception it was great to catch-up with two Forrester analysts who I had not spoken to in a while: I last met Laura Ramos, VP, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research and blogger when I presented at the MarketingProfs' B2B Summit 2008 in Boston and Scott Santucci, Senior Analyst at Forrester in San Francisco where I spoke at a MarketingSherpa B2B Summit a few years back (Laura and Scott posed for this photo that I took).

Laura noted to me some of the obstacles that large businesses face in adopting social media. I pointed out that social media were especially well suited to small business. Although small businesses are passionate, Laura has found that resources at small business often become constrained in meeting the demands of content creation.

Jill Konrath, Chief Sales Officer, Selling to Big Companies, author and blog ger confided in me some of the challenges that she faces in expanding her sales training organization in this downturn.

Anneke Seley, Founder & CEO of Phone Works, author and blogger was very receptive in discussing with me alternative inside sales models in a Sales 2.0 world. Anneke (see photo on left) was one of the standout speakers on a panel later that day.

Jim Dickie, Partner at CSO Insights gave a stellar presentation at the conference. Although hardly participating at the same level, I offered up to Jim our learning through our LeadGen Tools Research. The photo below

was taken of Jim (left) with Gerhard Gschwandtner, Founder and CEO, Personal Selling Power and host of the conference.

Lead Nurture through Social Networks

2009-03-05T09:11:00.019-05:00

Today is the second day of the Sales 2.0 Conference in San Francisco.

On Day One, Mark Wilson, VP Marketing, Sybase presented a unique perspective on social networks. Mark can be seen on the far right of the photo of the panel on Marketing for Sales Success (click on the photo to expand the photo size).

The topic of social networks arose in an unexpected scenario: Mark Wilson advocates using social networks for lead nurture.

This comment was unusual in the context of a sales conference and in that Sybase has traditionally used a marketing automation tool to nurture leads that are not yet sales-ready.

Mark's perspective was that a social network was a great forum for prospects to connect with Sybase customers and fans. Mark favors neutral or third-party networks vs. Sybase sponsored networks.

More posts to follow on the conference.

Follow this link to my photos from the conference.

Lead Generation Takes Precedence in the Downturn

2009-02-19T22:37:00.008-05:00

In response to a substantial drop in technology spending, B2B marketers will cut budgets and re-jig their media mix.

This was one of the main conclusions drawn from the recent BtoB webinar: Outlook 2009: Marketing Priorities and Plans.

The webinar featured Kate Maddox, Senior Reporter, BtoB Magazine, Rich Vancil, VP Executive Advisory Group at IDC, Mark Wilson, VP Corporate Marketing at Sybase and Mark Gambill, CMO at CDW

Rich Vancil spoke to some preliminary results compiled from a recent survey of 36 tech marketing vendors.

Tech & Marketing Spend - IDC forecasts that IT Global Revenue Growth will increase marginally by 0.5% in 2009 and Global Marketing Investment Growth will drop by 10%.

Although this is a sombre forecast, it does not compare to the steep drop in spend in 2001 (see my previous blog post on this).

Brand vs. Lead Generation - The IDC survey indicates that B2B marketers have ranked demand generation significantly higher than awareness building for marketing initiatives. In good times, IDC has found that the rankings of demand generation and awareness building are equal.

The further that a marketing activity is distanced from the sales team, the deeper the cuts will be. IDC forecasts deep to moderate cuts in branding, big tent events, marketing strategy and product marketing but moderate increases in lead management and qualification and sales enablement.

Digital Marketing - IDC reports that digital marketing spend is over 9% of total marketing investment in 2008 and predicts that digital marketing will carve out the largest slice of marketing spend by 2010.

Sales Spend - Areas such as sales administration and outside sales will bear the brunt of cuts while sales enablement and insides sales are forecasted to see increased funding.

Sales investment in Lead Qualification and Demand Generation will increase by 20%+ in 2009.

Mark Wilson from Sybase and Mark Gambill from CDW echoed Rich Vancil's remarks.

Sybase is using the recession as an opportunity to assess all marketing programs, even the 'sacred cows'. Integrated programs are prioritized over one-off, standalone programs. Sybase's media mix will favor online media such as SEM, social media and virtual events.

CDW has taken a very analytical approach in strategic target marketing and understanding customer behavior. From this, CDW has aligned the essential programs to the strategy and any outliers are subject to scrutiny and cost-cutting.

As I consider the comments made during the webinar, some further thoughts come to mind as advice for marketers:

Be Proactive - 'If we cut marketing budgets by 10%, what will the impact be?' If you can't address this question in a factual way, then your CFO will answer this question for you.
Be Focused - Now more than ever, marketing needs to focus on success, minimize the noise and gain organizational buy-in.
Don't be Misled by the Law of Averages - Although the overall marketing budget may be cut by a significant percentage, there usually is latitude to double down on the winners and cut out the losers with a more effective media mix.
Remember that Change is Opportunity - with your competitors shedding unprofitable product lines, cutting back on marketing spend, tarnishing their customer satisfaction levels and laying off valuable staff, now may be the time to seize the day.
Use Levers in the Demand Generation Process - The most prevalent points of leverage are the shift from offline media (e.g. print advertising, face-to-face events) to online media (e.g. virtual events, SEM, social media) and from outside sales to inside sales and telemarketing.

To read more posts, follow this link to The Acquiring Minds Blog

To download the BtoB Magazine webcast, follow this link: Outlook 2009: Marketing Priorities and Plans.

Technology Spend - A Repeat of 2001?

2009-01-21T23:43:00.017-05:00

Fasten your seat belts. We will be encountering turbulence.

Like an airplane riding out choppy flying conditions, technology marketers wonder when the outlook will stabilize. Will our stomachs be spared the next gut-wrenching drop?

For those of us with memories of the last downturn, we ask:

Will we see a repeat of the 2001 Tech Meltdown?

In 2000, technology spending in America grew 16% but then dropped 6% in 2001.

According to a recent article in the Economist, we are unlikely to repeat the cataclysmic events of 2001.

A number of reasons are cited:

The IT market has become more global with China and India spending expected to grow.
IT Departments today are much leaner and less likely to overspend.
The largest IT vendors are better managed and capitalized

The Economist draws heavily from an OECD report and quotes from its author:

More importantly, last time around the IT industry was not the victim of an economic crisis, but its cause, says Graham Vickery, author of the OECD report - Information Technology Outlook.

.....the slowdown and declines so far are not as dramatic as the ICT crash in 2001-02 as the sector is markedly stronger and has not engaged in the excesses of the earlier period.

From a technology marketer's perspective, I believe that today we are in an advantageous position:

B2B organizations have conservatively managed marketing headcount and marketing spend since the last recession. According to IDC, B2B marketing budgets declined two years before this downturn.
As the mantra moves from 'Do More with Not Much' to 'Do More with Less', we have a plethora of online tools that are more affordable and measurable than before.
Open source and SaaS (Cloud Computing) provide price-sensitive buyers with a viable option to minimize upfront expenses and avoid shelfware by recalibrating licenses on a yearly basis.

To sum it up, there is room for optimism despite the doom and gloom.

The Evolution of Email for Lead Generation

2008-12-10T18:13:00.002-05:00

According to our recent survey of B2B marketers, email is widely used for lead generation: 86% of responders deploy email for lead generation. In fact, email was the top online medium for B2B marketers, besting both webinars and paid search.

Although it is often suggested that email is best suited for customer retention, this survey of 249 B2B marketers indicates that email is a key tool for customer acquisition.

The story gets more interesting as we take a look at what brands B2B marketers are using:

Two economical email providers are ranked highly - Constant Contact and Vertical Response are favored over more expensive email tools (see below).

Lead Generation Suites and CRM systems are often used for email marketing - its significant to note that a lead generation suite such as Eloqua leads this segment, even though email marketing is just one of its functions. Salesforce.com, a CRM tool and other lead generation suites such as Vtrenz, Aprimo and Marketo also crack the top 20 list.

For the survey, we defined lead generation suites as a group of two or more lead generation tools. For example most suites include both email and web analytics modules.

According to survey responders, Eloqua is the dominant player in lead generation suites, garnering more responses than the next four vendors combined.

So there you have it, even an old Web 1.0 tool like email continues to evolve.

Source: Directory of Lead Generation Tools 2008

New B2B Research on Lead Generation through Web 2.0 Media

2008-12-01T10:07:00.027-05:00

Today we released the results from our latest research on B2B lead generation.

The goal of our survey of close to 250 B2B marketers was to address two pivotal and practical questions specific to lead generation:

What online marketing tools are B2B marketers using for lead generation

How are online inquiries converted into offline, sales-ready leads?

I would like to share our first chart from the research. We asked the B2B marketers if a select number of online media tools were being deployed in lead generation programs.

Chart: Lead Generation Tool Adoption

Three tiers of tools were identified:

Tier 1 - These web tools are well-adopted (75%+) for lead generation and include Email, Webinars/Webcasting, PPC and Web Analytics. These tools are primarily Web 1.0 type tools.
Tier 2 - In this tier, we can see the emergence of blogging and RSS as the up and coming tools for lead generation, with adoption close to or at 50%.
Tier 3 - Podcast and pinging tools make up the third tier.

It is interesting to observe that although some of the Web 2.0 tools are not as popular for lead generation as Web 1.0 tools, their use by B2B marketers is significant. This is especially true given the relatively brief time that these tools have been available on the market.

It is a sad day for demand generation

2008-11-23T21:52:00.016-05:00

Two weeks ago I received a telemarketing call from a telecommunications provider (the offender shall remain nameless as the organization is a former client of my firm).

The caller spoke in fractured English and his intonation was flat. At times I was unsure if he was asking me a question or making a rhetorical comment.

The purpose of his call was to win my organization back to his firm. There was no probing as to why our organization canceled our contract. The focus of the discussion was on price.

When I explained to him that one of the reasons that we canceled was due to uncompetitive pricing, he asked us to compare pricing with our new provider.

I reluctantly agreed and suggested that he call back in a week.

One week later, my new friend called me back. I recognized his voice but unfortunately I was unfamiliar to him.

My superficial friend seemed to have suffered amnesia. He asked: Who is the decision-maker at my firm on telecommunication services ? Was he available?

Well I had heard enough. I promptly and politely ended the call.

Here is what the sarcastic B2B marketer will take away from this experience:

If you want to shoot yourself in the foot, use the same quality of telemarketers and the same approach in B2B as you would in B2C. Focus on the offer (i.e. discounts) and don`t spend any more money on a more professional telemarketer.
Don`t bother investing in a CRM system for B2B. There is no need to take notes from previous conversations or understand previous touch points. If the prospect gets aggravated after repeating the same conversation from the week before, no problem, there are lots of fish in the sea. Don`t worry about antagonizing people: there is no Do Not Call list for business-to-business.
Who cares about customer churn! We can always bribe our ex-customers to win them back. They will stay with us as long as we can contractually tie their hands. So if the cycle begins the day after the contract ends, not a problem, we win these guys back (again)!

If this experience is reflective of the general state of B2B demand generation, then its time to start looking for a new vocation.

Speech today at Chicago B2B Event

2008-11-12T21:24:00.021-05:00

Today I spoke to a group of B2B marketers at the Chicago Association of Direct Marketers (CADM) on the topic of B2B Online Lead Generation and Management.

After presenting here a year ago at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum, I welcomed the opportunity to return to Chicago (see my photo below).

The timing was good: the results from our third annual LeadGen Tools Survey will be released in the next week.

The CADM audience received a sneak peek at some of the data (more on that later).

The premise of the presentation was that B2B marketers should join a significant number of their peers in deploying Web 2.0 media in lead generation programs.

Second, leads generated through organic search and social media, are of high quality. Unfortunately, our research shows that B2B marketers face significant obstacles in telequalifying quickly and effectively.

The presentation was well received with questions pertaining to the use of video in marketing programs, the role of Twitter and Blogging in lead generation and what other options exist in order to qualify some markets that are difficult to access via phone (e.g. physicians).

I had a good chat with Garth Moulton, co-founder and VP Community of Jigsaw, the sponsor of the CADM event. As it turns out, Garth does not answer his phone anymore because his contact details are featured in Jigsaw as a working example. Garth explained that with 1.5M hits a month, his name is turning up in many searches and folks are mistakenly phoning him, assuming that he is the designated contact at the companies that they are searching for. Ah….the price of success!

Garth and the two other co-founders of Jigsaw formerly worked at Digital Impact together in sales. Digital Impact, an email marketing service provider now owned by Acxiom, was a client of Direct Impact Marketing. It was interesting to hear Garth describe the evolution of the ultra-competitive email market.

I look forward to my next visit to Chicago.

This is not about marketing

2008-11-05T22:00:00.009-05:00

This blog has been quiet of late as my family took a break to tour London, Belgium and France.

Who could ask for a better tonic to a hectic lifestyle than two weeks in Europe?

With the surprisingly good weather and the wonderful hospitality heaped on us by our Belgian hosts in Ghent, the economic crisis and the gyrating stockmarkets seemed far away.

However, a greater sense of perspective was realized gazing out to these broad expanses: the above photo was taken in Normandy, France and the one below, near Ypres in Belgium.

The picture in Normandy is of Juno beach where the Canadians landed on D-Day. This beach was the most heavily fortified of all D-Day beaches. Similar to the Americans at Omaha Beach, the casualty rate approximated 50%.

The second picture looks out to the fields of Passchendaele, where one of the most horrific battles of World War I took place with over 500,000 dead including 16,000 Canadians.

The horrors of these two wars are difficult to fathom from North America, let alone from standing in these battlefields reclaimed by Mother Earth.

We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to those who suffered and those who gave their lives to preserve our freedom.

Lest we forget their sacrifices.

(For more photos, see my Flickr posts).

HubSpot's Social Media Delivers on ROI

2008-09-23T10:05:00.004-04:00

In some of my previous posts, I suggested that social media is highly effective in generating marketing ROI.

Last week, I interviewed Mike Volpe, VP of Marketing HubSpot, for his perspective on social media ROI.

HubSpot is a stellar example of how a small business can excel in social media marketing and in the process, attract $17 million in venture capital for a social media and online marketing solution (read more on why small business succeeds with social media).

Mike started off our discussion by observing that most marketers believe that social media is only suitable for creating buzz and fostering brands.

However Mike disagrees and with good reason: HubSpot favors social media for demand generation.

HubSpot’s inquiries from social media support Mike’s position. Below are selected social media results for June 2008:

Editors Note: Although HubSpot defines ‘leads’ as any prospect who has completed an online form, it is more accurate to define these unqualified responders as ‘inquiries’.

Mike has calculated his cost-per-inquiry as $10 per inquiry and includes the marketing overheads for content creation. This compares favorably to the $75 per inquiry he would pay for traditional outbound marketing.

Although Mike was unable to share the ROI on his social media marketing programs, he indicated that the ROI on social media is many times more than traditional outbound marketing programs.

This has created a ‘fun’ sales and marketing environment where salespeople do not make cold calls and marketing managers avoid having to focus on marginal improvements in response rates and trying to avoid spam filters.

Mike’s advice is that social media should be viewed as any other top of funnel marketing activity. The goal is to build an audience rather than a database. Marketers should create content or tools that engage prospects to realize a social media outcome. Offers and calls-to-action will help move prospects along the buying cycle.

HubSpot’s audience numbers are impressive with 6,000 blog subscribers and 3,000 webinar registrants – far surpassing HubSpot’s forecasts.

Mike acknowledged that it can be difficult to measure interactions amongst social media and the impact on prospect conversions. However, HubSpot has generated a significant number of prospects and sales who can be attributed to clicking from a singular social media source.

I wish HubSpot continued success and applaud their success in defining ROI on social media.

P.S. I have to congratulate Mike on not once plugging his use of their own social media software as the key to HubSpot’s accomplishments.

A Community Turns One Year Old

2008-09-23T09:55:00.007-04:00

If Social Media Today is a toddler, then that would make me a newborn.

A few weeks back I was invited to blog on Social Media Today and now would like to send my congratulations to the team.

Happy Birthday to you! Thanks for inviting me to the online Party!

Crowdsourcing: Wikipedia vs. The Economist

2008-09-18T15:43:00.010-04:00

Two diverse questions came to mind as I read an article on crowdsourcing:

Is crowdsourcing losing its appeal?
Is journalism threatened by Wikipedia?

Recently, the Economist published an article on crowdsourcing that discussed the past and future of this social medium where idea generation is outsourced to online crowds.

The author illustrated the success of crowdsourcing with examples drawn from Wikipedia, the Library of Congress (using Flikr) and Google.

According to article, the cost savings on crowdsourcing can evaporate when intellectual property such as product designs must be legally verified as to their ownership. In addition, a volunteer model such as Wikipedia would be disrupted should Wikipedia evolve to a for-profit business.

Next I turned to Wikipedia for their perspective on crowdsourcing.

I was interested to see that many of the same success stories and pros and cons on crowdsourcing were shared by the Economist and Wikipedia.

We know that Wikipedia has trumped Encyclopedia Britannica but does this extend to magazines such as the venerable Economist?

As Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams observe in the book Wikinomics, the strength of Wikipedia is the substantial number of edits made by the Wikipedia community of volunteers - an average of 20 edits per article. In a similar fashion to open source software, the community is constantly updating and revising articles.

Given this dynamic state, perhaps Wikipedia is as much to threat to journalism as YouTube is to TV.

Delivering ROI on Social Media

2008-09-05T06:50:00.002-04:00

My last post discussed why the nature of social media need not be compromised by pursuing lead generation through these new media.

Today, let's turn to some examples of how B2B marketers are embracing social media for this purpose.

A few weeks ago, McKinsey & Company released the results of their latest survey on social media: Building the Web 2.0 Enterprise: McKinsey Global Survey Results. The buzz on this report included a post from Peter Kim, a fellow Social Media Today blogger.

The McKinsey survey struck a chord with me in that 94% of responding executives deployed Web 2.0 media targeting internal parties versus 87% who interfaced with customers. This indicates an almost equal propensity to use these tools to communicate to both external and internal parties.

In targeting customers, improving customer service and acquiring new customers in internal markets were #1 (73%) and #2 (71%) respectively.

In other words, a significant proportion of survey respondents are using Web 2.0 tools for customer acquisition.

So if organizations are using social media to acquire customers, then how can we measure ROI?

An easy answer lies with blogging - the rainmaker of social media.

If your goal is to attract visitors to your website, blogs are an ideal medium to publish fresh, relevant content with keywords that attract the search engines like bees to honey.

Leads generated from organic or natural search results are of higher quality and are more likely to convert to qualified leads than any other medium. You can ask yourself: what is the value of a page one search result on Google?

Bingo! ROI can be calculated based on the value of qualified leads and closed sales generated through organic search. (Personal note: this week I closed a $20,000 account that found my organization through organic search and whom we never would have targeted with our outbound marketing efforts).

In a much less scientific method than McKinsey, I asked a question on LinkedIn Answers to see if marketers were using blogs to enhance their organic (or SEO) page rank and to gauge the impact on their business development.

Here are the highlights:

The small direct marketing agency in Silicon Valley who achieves top organic search results in only 24 hours.
The tech start-up in Austin who has generated substantial lead volume through their social media efforts in only a short period of time.
A highly ranked blogger on wireless technology who resides in India.
A web design firm in Ireland who attracts 40 unique visitors a day through blogging and organic search.
A web design firm in India whose blogging has been so successful in improving their organic search results that the firm has canceled their paid search (PPC) program.

These small organizations have demonstrated high ROI on social media through blogging and can easily quantify the benefits.

Do you know of other organizations who have a similar perspective on generating ROI through social media such as blogging?

Lead Generation through Social Media?

2008-08-26T22:45:00.029-04:00

You can almost see the collective hand wringing and hear the teeth gnashing as angst-ridden B2B marketers are being pressed by their organizations for proof on the value of social media. It's clear that B2B organizations, being metrics driven beasts, are looking for more 'beef' beyond the measurement of engagement.

The premise of this blog, Acquiring Minds, is that social media, as with other online media, provide B2B marketers with a stellar opportunity to generate qualified leads and to impact ROI.

But wait one minute! It almost seems heretical to sabotage social media by attempting to generate leads. However, there are many organizations who have demonstrated that these two goals are compatible by building their business through social media while adhering to best practices (but more on that shortly).

The discourse on social media or Web 2.0 media almost entirely focuses on communication and collaboration with little discussion on how social media impacts the bottom line. And justly so: the opportunity to innovate, build competitive advantage and cut costs with Enterprise 2.0 tools is compelling (see Andrew McAfee's blog).

The advent of social media is comparable to other disruptive technologies in the area of collaboration & communication.

When Lotus Notes was launched in 1989, some of you may remember the bewilderment expressed by your organization.

Like social media today, Lotus Notes and other communication and collaboration technology is one of those IT expenditures where payback and ROI are much more difficult to quantify.

Lotus Notes
<=== So, how did you explain the value of this to your boss in 1989?

Social media creates the same befuddlement in executive decision-makers as do other communication and collaboration technologies.

You may be talking but your executives are hearing this:

"Gee, we are not quite sure on ROI but here is something different: we're giving a public voice to the 'unwashed masses' in our organization and let's not forget our disgruntled customers."

Is it any wonder that so few Fortune 500 organizations encourage their employees to blog?

Where social media happily deviate from their fellow communication and collaboration tools is their unique ability to dialog with not only internal but also external parties and to publish fresh content featuring keywords that attract search engines to your website.

In summary, let`s move beyond collaboration and communication and try to understand better how the B2B community is leveraging social media or Web 2.0 tools for lead generation. We all need to sell internally the value of marketing. Lead generation through social media will provide you with that ammunition.

Tell me - how are you using social media for lead generation?

On my next post, I will provide some success stories from B2B marketers.

More Reasons that Small Businesses Excel at Social Media

2008-08-05T19:29:00.016-04:00

After my last posting on small business and social media, Chris Brogan was kind enough to tweet my blog and attract some savvy writers.

At the same time, Ann Handley was a welcome visitor to ye old blog.

A surprise for me: all of the comments were positive and relevant (except for the guy trying to sell me on doing business on Costa Rica).

Before we take a closer look at some of the comments, I wanted to share with you the question that I asked during the Forrester webinar and Laura Ramos` interesting response.

Q: Robert Lesser: It appears that smaller B2B companies are more successful with their social media marketing than large B2B marketers. Is this showing up in the data? If yes, why?

A: Laura Ramos: We have not looked at the data from this perspective, but it is possible to do so if interested in exploring this further. Anecdotally, we have seen social media and online tactics favor smaller companies in general because small companies are more agile, less constrained by legacy, and able to "look bigger" than they are in the digital realm (emphasis provided).

So it seems that we all are in agreement, at least at a conceptual level, on why small businesses are excelling at social media.

And now let`s feature some of the top reasons submitted from those who read the blog:

Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs
"Got passion? (Actually, this could be considered a part of the "megaphone" and "sweat equity" reasons, too.) But so many small business owners have real passion for what they are doing, and that converts into the energy and authenticity necessary to commit to doing social media right."

Ann Kingman, Blogger, Books on the Night Stand CEOs are the Public Face - "In most small businesses, the founder/CEO *is* the company, or there are a few key employees who play that role, and so it's much easier to put a human face on the organization than if it were a huge multinational corporation.

Giles Crouch, Partner & CEO, MediaBadger / Blogger, Webconomist
"Building Loyalty: Small biz can engage customers more directly, leading to product innovations and increased loyalty through conversations."

Top 10 Reasons Small Businesses Excel at Social Media

2008-07-30T22:17:00.004-04:00

Today I attended Forrester's Webinar "Defining Your B2B Social Media Strategy" with Vice President and Principal Analyst, Laura Ramos, and Vice President of Tech Industry Consulting, Dan Klein.

The seminar was chock full of interesting facts on social media usage by B2B marketers and by B2B decision-makers.

For both B2B vendors and the buyers of those solutions, social media is considered a second tier marketing medium.

Last month, Laura Ramos released a report entitled: How to Derive Value from B2B Blogging. A survey of 189 Forrester customers revealed the number of blogs started by these B2B organizations `plummeted` in 2007 from 2006 as the results from these blogs did not meet expectations.

Laura attributes part of this to using `warmed-over press releases` on blogs.

Another attendee and I leveraged the WebEx chat to ask questions on how the usage of social media varied by the size of the organization.

Anu Venkitaraman, Managing Partner of ReThink Marketing of Addison,TX and I, conducted a private chat discussing why small B2B marketers have embraced social media in a stronger way than their bigger B2B sisters and brothers.

Here are our top 10 (in no particular order and actually there are only 8):

Give me a Megaphone - For B2B start-ups evangelizing is a way of life to attract the attention of investors, partners and customers.
Talking about My Generation - Younger professionals are already well-versed in social networking and have a huge appetite for expressing themselves.
A Clean Slate - With little to no marketing infrastructure, a small B2B marketer can leapfrog to a web presence that includes social media. Witness the number of firms that use blogs as their website backbone.
The Big Squeeze - Hard dollars are in short supply for small firms. The cost of entry for social media in hard budget dollars is close to zero.
Sweat Equity - The greatest resource for a small firm is the hard labor that staff will invest to make their equity real. The production of relevant social media content requires this dedication and investment.
Risk / Reward - The small B2B marketer recognizes that the rewards associated with engaging in public customer dialog outweigh the risk of losing control of the marketing message.
Inverse Relationship of Press Releases - the number of parties who must approve a press release is inversely related to that organization`s embrace of social media. In other words, the more bureaucracy associated with marketing communications, the less likelihood that the wild west of social media will be approved by senior executives.
Let`s fail and try again - Smaller organizations are more likely to experiment with marketing media and social media is another option to test.

Are there any other reasons? Help me round off the number to 10!

Moment of Truth in B2B Demand Generation

2008-06-26T22:19:00.011-04:00

As we consider the full breadth of our demand generation programs, there are weak links that can torpedo our efforts.

Great efforts are underway by our organizations to better align sales and marketing department in pursuit of the common goal of closing more sales.

Although it is clear that a core player in all complex sale demand generation programs is the sales person, I would like to pay specific attention to the hand off from marketing to sales.

This key `moment of truth` is realized when the prospect responds and then looks to the vendor for a live discussion or when the prospect expects the vendor to reach out to them.

As more and more responses move online, the buyer`s expectations have changed.

Have our sales teams modified their approach to engaging online responders?

In future postings, I would like to discuss a number of key areas for vendors to better address the needs of online buyers but two stand out today:

Responding to buyer inquiries in a timely and consistent manner.
Providing value to prospects.

Do you remember when companies started publishing an email address on their website and the first time that you sent an email to sales? Like most of us, you were probably dismayed when your inquiry remained unaddressed and reluctantly you returned to the telephone to get the job done.

In that same vein, let`s take a closer look at this moment of truth.

What to make of the new Oracle.

2008-06-22T19:50:00.006-04:00

You may have caught Kate Maddox of BtoB Online covering the recent Business Marketing Association conference.

According to Kate, the candor of Judith Sim, VP-CMO of Oracle, during her keynote at the BMA conference was quite surprising. Judith stated that Oracle has increased its return on marketing despite declining budgets. That budget is 1.7% of revenue versus more than 5% a decade ago.

From my perspective, we have seen drastic changes to technology publications over the past year (e.g. CMP's elimination of some its print publications). However, it was startling to be exposed to the magnitude of Oracle's drop in print advertising: from 55% of of its ad budget last year to 9% in the upcoming year.

Conversely, online advertising has increased to 36% of Oracle's ad budget this year substantially up from 22% last year.

Judith Sim also discussed Oracle's use of social news releases that has helped cut Oracle's PR budget in half and the posting of videos, blogs and forums on the Oracle website.

I couldn't help but think of the impact on Oracle's messaging in this massive change from offline to online communications and lead generation.

How well will the hard-hitting and competitive print ads from Oracle make the transition to the world of online media and user-generated content?

In the spirit of online camaraderie, I would like to present to Oracle my recommendation.

Let's pit Oracle and against its arch-rival SAP and compare their core websites head-to-head on Web 2.0 media.

Employee Blogs - Oracle: 162, SAP:0 - The busy bees at Oracle win hands-down.
Non-Employee Blogs - both websites host many - Let's call this a tie.
Forums & Wikis - both websites offer robust forums and Wikis - Again a tie.
Corporate Podcast Shows - Oracle:8, SAP:0 - A slam for Oracle
Digg-style ranking site - Bonus points for Oracle on creating the Oracle Mix beta site

There you have it....even in the online world, Oracle can claim superiority!

P.S. I have recently moved my blog to Blogger. Check out the new blog and some of my coverage on the MarketingProfs B2B Forum and the SiriusDecisions Sales & Marketing Summit.