We’ve been reviewing recently our most successful lead management and lead nurturing programmes, looking at what it took to make them successful and the key steps in setting them up. (For a view on the benefits these programmes have to offer, see this previous post on lead nurturing strategies/target benefits.)

Alongside a more detailed set of critical success factors, our review suggested 4 key attributes essential for creating lead management programmes (each then breaks down into several competence questions in a kick-off process):

1. Detailed knowledge of the business objectives and capabilities/needs of different teams in the business/external partners
2. Insight into target individuals, their typical needs and decision/purchase journeys
3. Expertise in the strategies, content, and hooks that drive forward the audience journeys
4. Working understanding of the technologies of lead management, nurturing and CRM (technology must not come first, but understanding the different capabilities of Eloqua vs Silverpop vs Oracle vs Marketo vs Aprimo vs Neolane vs Microsoft Dynamics vs Salesforce etc etc will ensure rapid time to value)

Only by balancing these 4 factors is it possible to take the 4 actions necessary to build the best performing programme (while these 4 are distinct and each have several sub-actions, they can’t be treated in isolation as each has an impact on the other):

1. Identify areas of potential for greatest business impact from lead management (and set the right targets/measures)
2. Correctly set the process and scoring for management/handover of different levels of opportunities and for management/improvement of ‘marketing’ data in the nurturing process
3. Design the right journeys, create enticing content (or ‘wrap’ existing content), identify appropriate triggers/personalisation opportunities
4. Select the best areas to launch the programme, implement rapidly and scale up appropriately

It would be interesting to hear if anyone has spotted any other headline factors responsible for lead management success…

Forrester’s recent research (’How Managing Leads Pays Off In A Stronger, More Qualified Pipeline‘ – registration required) makes for interesting reading. Sponsored by marketing technology vendor Silverpop, the research is based on interviews with 15 senior B2B marketers in the US.

The interviewees paint a consistent and compelling picture of what lead management can deliver:

• Healthier pipelines (both better qualified and higher in volume as more leads are nurtured through to opportunities)
• More accountable marketing (consistently planned, measuring the right things and drawing out valuable intelligence)
• Greater efficiencies (more re-use of content, smarter contact strategies, less blanket comms)
• More appropriate communications (a better experience for customers and prospects)

What’s particularly refreshing (for a paper sponsored by a technology provider) is how much emphasis is given to getting the lead management and content creation process right before selecting the technology platform to use.

It’s exactly as we’ve seen across long term lead nurturing and relationship programmes – the technology is essential (whether that’s Salesforce or Siebel, Eloqua or Silverpop or even just Excel) but there are so many other factors that need to be considered first:

• Building the necessary alignment with sales
• Setting valid goals and designing the overall process
• Understanding the audience (to reach them, meet their needs, and score them)
• Creating the content that will make a difference to the audience
• Designing the campaign components to distribute the content (and mapping these into communication flows that take contacts on the right journey)
• Defining how issues like data quality and sales handover (in both directions) will be managed in the ongoing programme

After all of these (and there are several useful models to consider in the report), comes the right technology solution. There’s rarely just a single answer – far more often it comes down to the ability to integrate different platforms to make the desired process possible.

One major element that the report begins to highlight is the importance of the human factor. In our experience, there are very few processes that can be fully automated – this is where the ideal lead management process needs to account for things like efficiently handling inbound responses and making the most of opportunities for personal interaction like initial sales workshops. Above all,  it demands a new skill-set from B2B marketers to conceive, deliver and operate a lead management process.

A January article in McKinsey Quarterly raised the old question of how much emotion really comes into major purchase decisions – particularly after hearing recently from one decision-maker who said that the first projects to get budget approval are when the mandate comes straight from the Board for an urgent action or to get something new in place (JFDI was the acronym he used).

McKinsey’s article (Data to dollars: Supporting top management with next-generation executive information systems – free registration required) highlights an opportunity for CIOs to ‘make their roles more critical than ever’ by making the benefits of Business Intelligence directly visible to the Board. [Off the topic of this post, the article contains some great examples of models to visualise complex BI in action]

The article uses an example to show precisely how poor information can become a personal and emotional issue for the CIO:

“Executives intent on reviewing key performance indicators (KPIs) had to sort through a jumble of onscreen data, so the CIO needed to take several IT analysts offline every month to comb through the figures and create the desired analyses. Frustrated, the company’s board pressed the CIO to explain why group reporting costs were climbing upward and so much IT support was necessary. As the chief information officer, the CIO should play a more central role in designing next-generation executive information systems that can help a company’s top managers extract value from the data that surrounds them.”

Considering this kind of personal argument can often lead to the best response when we’re taking a proposition to senior buyers. It’s where the heart (in this example, ‘I need to be seen to do something’) can multiply the effect of the head (’there’s a better way for us to work as a company’).

Other more ‘emotional’ sales angles could include  playing on how you can make their department into a hero, or help it to prove its worth. Staying with the example of Business Intelligence, it struck me at our recent S&M Forum that the Finance decision-makers would be keen to invest in BI simply around the promise that it could help them track the performance of all the other investments they are making (ability to measure results being one of the main things they are looking to improve). This kind of thinking doesn’t normally come into a BI proposition, but it may be closest to the buyer’s heart.

This more ‘emotional’ angle  to selling can be matched by a more ‘psychological’ approach to marketing. When we look at the programmes that are delivering the best results, we can see that they are tied to some level of psychological or behavioural insight.

For example, people are more likely to respond to a lead generation activity if you make the next step ‘visible’ (giving a phone number to call if people want more information is one thing – but explaining the first stages of your sales process could actually be more powerful in helping them to see how they can take their interest forward). We also know that response or interaction can be prompted by factors like a fear of falling behind (ultimately tied to job security), a desire to be seen as posessing (and sharing) greater knowledge than peers, feeling indebted for a valuable experience…

It’s certainly too simplistic to apply B2C models of emotional buying behaviour to B2B purchases, but we do need to remember that decision-makers aren’t simply automated decision-taking machines. Our work will always be more powerful if we consider the people as well as the business that we’re marketing to.

Smurfs may be great gardeners, but would they make it in B2B marketing? With this whole ’spot the difference’ idea, they’ve clearly bought into the common marketing principle of ‘differentiate or die’. But is that just qualifying them out of potential deals?

[/end tenuous Smurf analogy/]

I’m worried that many people (me included, too often) put too much faith in the ‘differentiate or die’ message. It can lead us to try and create USPs at a point in the sales cycle when we should be concentrating on answering customer needs. Just because competitors also answer these needs, doesn’t necessarily mean we can’t talk about it too.

Take an example: let’s say there are lots of companies acknowledging a need for your kind of solution (some in the sweet spot where you really do have better features than the competition) – but there are two or three big names always getting on the shortlist for the RFP.

Now, do you really need marketing to differentiate yourself from the big three? Or is the issue actually that people see them as exactly placed to answer their needs and perceive you as too different already (or don’t see you at all)?

Perhaps there’s an argument that marketing up to the point of the RFP should be all about ‘me too’ – we have a great client list (like them), we have delivered great results (like them), we have features x,y,z (like them)…

The chances are that knowledge of what one of the big competitors can do is already helping the prospect to shape their RFP  – so the only thing you’re going to achieve with differentiation is to discount yourself from the deal. This obviously isn’t a hard and fast rule (and would I imagine vary according to market and product maturity), but should be food for thought before we jump to look for a USP to market around rather than a clear customer need.

Of course, if the competition is bigger than you, then you will need one kind of differentiation – not necessarily to do with what you say, but all to do with how/where you say it. They’ll own various saturated marketing channels (think Google AdWords, tradeshows/exhibitions, industry publications, analyst activity…) – but it’s your opportunity to get smart and targeted with your direct communications to really deliver that ‘me too’ message in a way that gets ‘me too’ onto the shortlist…

And once you’re on that shortlist and having your sales meetings – that’s the time to really stick it to the competition (and your sales team need all the support they can get to highlight the places where your product/service differentiators meet the pain points of the prospect).

But start the differentiation too soon and you’ll end up needing to create a whole new market before anyone will buy from you (which is a great challenge to have, if you’re up for the fight!).

So, anyway, have you spotted the 5 differences in the smurf picture? Go here to see if you got it right!

Are there any suppliers who don’t aspire to a ‘thought leadership’ position? It’s an admirable objective, but fails to deliver on the promise all too often. Meanwhile, a more practical approach seems to be delivering ever-stronger results…

So last week, a colleague proposed the possibility that – with every man and his dog creating a ‘thought leadership’ position – the real thought leaders might be doing just the opposite.

The impulse behind a thought leadership programme is to have something interesting to say to clients and prospects, ideally something that stands a business apart from the competition as more forward-thinking and creating new solutions to existing challenges.

Which is great as a principle, and when it works it can pay massive dividends. But too often, after this great start, people put the ’stand apart from the competition’ before the ‘interesting to clients and prospects’ – which typically means taking an ever more tangential/futuristic view on a subject. And so the thought leading position gets farther and farther away from where the majority of clients/prospects are fighting their day to day battles (and spending the majority of their budgets).

When we researched the people making buying decisions worth millions of pounds, we found that the ones taking the decisions weren’t necessarily in the c-suite, but departmental heads/programme directors – people with day jobs too big to worry about what might be possible in the future and all too concerned with what’s happening today.

There’s also a tightrope to walk between innovation and delivery – at our recent S&M Forum we heard from Finance decision-makers who explained how they prioritise budget for suppliers who can clearly show what they will deliver and how they are capable of delivering (having done the same thing 100 times before being more important than some potential but unproven competitive advantage).

This won’t be true for every proposition or every audience (some companies are less risk-averse than the norm and are typically good target early adopters for new solutions), but the current environment does seem to call for a more practical, pragmatic kind of leadership.

Maybe the really innovative thinking would be to stick to what worries today’s decision-makers – details of where your proposition fits their budgets and priorities, stories about what’s going right and wrong, implementation pot-holes, war stories…

So what would we call the opposite of thought leadership? Well, if the balance is between thinking and doing, perhaps it should be ‘deed leadership’.

IBM has released a research piece “The Evolving Role of the CIO” alongside its transcripts of interviews with leading UK CIOs, which I mentioned in yesterday’s post. Some useful trends are highlighted by the white paper. Two of the major areas of interest are the changing nature of the role’s reporting line: the majority of CIOs – 42% of them - report to the CEO, with only 14% now reporting to the CFO. And the longevity of the average CIO is pointing up their increasing role in long-term planning: it is normal for CIOs to remain in their post for 6 years (research by Allan Alter, April 06), which is twice as long as the average CEO.

However, when looking to communicate with, and ultimately build relationships with, this particular beast a few points made in the white paper really resonated:

“The CIO is an idea position to take increasing business responsibility and control.”

“It’s one of the most dynamic and creative roles in a modern company.”

“CIOs are on the way to becoming tomorrow’s CEO”

“Key skills of today’s CIO include the ability to translate Board requirements into solutions. He needs to talk the language of the Board and the investors.”

“All innovation in our industry will be technology-led or technology facilitated.”

All of the above suggest that while the CIO no longer has to “sell the IT philosophy”, he or she is expected to be able to lead people, lead technologically and have acute business acumen. As Acergy’s CIO says in the report “tomorrow’s CIO must have the proficiency to be heir apparent to any senior executive position.” It stands to reason therefore, that the CIO of now and the future will want access to people and content that will satisfy their needs to contribute at the boardroom table.

The white paper suggests that the CIO will need to “understand the possibilities of the future” – any communications programme aiming to paint that picture more clearly for the CIO is at a distinct advantage.

To supplement its recent white paper on the evolving role of the CIO, IBM has just launched a series of downloadable CIO interviews as PDFs. As it’s a feature of  their UK site all these interviews are with UK based CIOs; certainly in my experience, it’s fairly rare to get UK information this freely available, as many previous CIO series are largely US-based.

Interviews are, among others, with the CIOs/CTOs of Waitrose, Wincanton, Network Rail, Dundee City Council, O2 and HSBC. They are downloadable as separate PDFs and provide good insight into the challenges in each of these accounts. We’ll be commenting on the umbrella “Evolving Role of the CIO” report in our next post.

I’d recommend a look at the deck Pete Jakob (IBM’s Marketing Transformation Leader) has recently put onto SlideShare entitled “The Organic Gardener’s Guide to Lead Nurturing“. 

Major highlights from his slides include advice from his experiences of running successful lead nurturing programmes at IBM. His main points resonate closely with those at The Marketing Practice’s heart:

-run fewer, longer-running programmes (see this post on the case for multi-touch campaigning)

-be accountable (see this post on working with sales by joint working on the business development process)

-think about the next step, not “are you ready to buy now?” (see this post on how to develop “next step” propositions)

-plan for frequent change (and expect it) in your programme, add innovation as you go (by effectively “scheduling in” change, you could have moved quickly to integrate messages like these into your programmes)

As an aside, it’s an interesting job title Pete’s got. As the post-watershed world rolls on, I wouldn’t mind betting we’ll see quite a few more of these.

What do senior decision-makers think of your marketing and sales efforts? What are they responding to? What do they want more or less of from you?

These questions were at the heart of our recent Sales & Marketing Forum, where we heard from IT buyers about their attitudes and experiences of marketing. We’re now running debriefing sessions for people who weren’t able to make the evening (request a session), but we’ve also collated online the presentations from three speakers:

• Keith Mitchell, former Global Head of Shared Infrastructure, Reuters
• Claire Myerson, Information Technology Solutions Director, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals
• Chris Cottam, former European Marketing Manager, HP

The presentation can be downloaded at http://www.themarketingpractice.com/documents/S&M_PeepShow.ppt – but it might be best read alongside some of the following thoughts (a short summary of my impressions, I hasten to add, not necessarily those of the speakers)…

Breaking in as a new supplier

The speakers had mixed views on specific channels to use to approach a buyer. Unanimously, social media and online channels (like webinars – as long as they last less than an hour and start at a time that is clear to a UK audience) are growing in importance. Keith’s point around web 2.0 was important to bear in mind when planning new social media initiatives: while he uses it for research and to bring insights/experiences into his team, you shouldn’t expect him to reciprocate or actively contribute.

The general message with other channels (direct mail, email, events…) was that the content needs to be either incredibly targeted or impactful (whether in a creative or business sense) for there to be any results. Claire emphasised that business buyers are also consumers and that inventive approaches or creative impact can have their place. But she was clear that nothing resonates more from a new supplier than stories of having done similar work for someone else in her industry.

Part of the issues suppliers face is to make sure that they are working where the money is. The example Chris used was the desire of almost all IT suppliers to become a ‘trusted advisor’ and the danger that such a strategy can significantly damage transactional revenue streams (which can be up to 75% of IT budgets) and leave the door open for the competition at a more practical level.

In the battle to reach the CIO or IT Director, don’t underestimate the role of the PA. Keith made the point that his PA would know what was on his agenda, would often be as interested in the content as he was, and would be able to open doors to other key people in the department. The overall message is that you should treat the PA as if they were themselves the CIO.

What do buyers want from existing suppliers?

We found in our own research that existing suppliers were seen as the most important source of information for buyers. This was confirmed by the forum speakers – particularly against sources like analysts, who received mixed reviews (some useful industry-specific analysts exists, but the big names seem increasingly irrelevant, especially compared with user-generated content online).

The speakers described how, in their best relationships, suppliers work alongside customers to plan out priorities for the year. It means that suppliers can share ideas, understand what they can expect, and avoid trying to sell anything inappropriate. It’s good to have shared formal account plans written down – although Chris did make the point that suppliers need to evaluate exactly how much effort to put into individual accounts depending on the business value they are likely to deliver. He used the example of people following the account-based marketing bandwagon without properly understanding the consequences both for the focus accounts and for the others that are left behind.

Keith wanted suppliers to be constantly sharing information – not only about industry or product trends, but also about them and their own activities. His worry was that suppliers would only communicate when they had something to sell, but at a time like this that can mean not being well positioned when spending does come back online. Having said that, his advice was also that, when you are in productive conversations, not to be too cautious about pushing the deal to a close. If there is a clear interest on his part it is frustrating if there is too much procrastination.

What can marketing do to help?

All the speakers had examples of marketing working well with sales and the customer – as well as examples of where things did not seem joined up. Claire’s advice was for marketers to work hard to ensure their offers reflect what sales already know about a businesses’ priorities.

At the same time, marketing has a lot to offer that sales cannot. For example, marketing can be a great vehicle for bringing in inspiration (sharing examples of other clients in the same industry) or strengthening ties with a supplier (through activities like industry forums or conferences).

Some specific ideas from the panel included:

• Working to celebrate success – for example, creating a video to celebrate a project going live (can strengthen the relationship with the customer and lead to future opportunities).
• Focusing on activities that give real value to individual customer contacts. One example given was a programme of MBA modules run by one supplier, where marketing had identified some key learning requirements and were supporting those.
• Using the opportunity of the recession to double-down on client references – increasingly important to be able to prove that you offer the low-risk alternative.
• Getting more personal in communications – not only in understanding customer issues, but also simply in the style of communication. For instance, Keith pointed out that graphics and formatting in emails are lost by the time they reach his Blackberry – and they also instantly make the message less personal.
• Staying honest and pragmatic – whereas hospitality is becoming increasingly difficult for customers to accept, the offer of a charitable donation (especially to a corporate charity) can persuade a customer to give up their time.

The impact of differing IT investment strategies was apparent this week in the difference between comments made by the House of Fraser and ASOS (As Seen on Screen).

In an interview with House of Fraser’s IT Director, Computing reported that established players are too far in to their old systems to change: “We have made such a big investment in our core platforms, so I cannot see us moving away from them,” said their IT Director.

“Nowadays it is not about wholesale replacement anymore, but about maximising and consolidating what you have. We have spent a lot of time and money on our systems over the past couple of years and it is now time to sweat the assets ­ and that is not a bad thing,”

“You can understand why financial trading needs to be at the sharp end of technology, but retail is all about consistency of delivery, operability and cost of ownership.”

“We never used to allow people to access the internet, but when we moved to the new building we provided everyone with web access, with some simple rules to protect us and the staff,” said Gray.

The rules mean that sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are banned and can only be used by the e-commerce team.

Does this bricks-and-mortar based organisation feel a little constrained, maybe even a bit backward-looking in its strategy? Certainly it feels as though House of Fraser could talk more about what IT can contribute to customer loyalty, or selling a wider product range… With the demise of many high street players in the recession, embracing technology’s role in engaging with customers makes more sense than ever.

This compared with Computing’s report on the role IT has played in ASOS’s astonishing success.

“The company reported a 92 per cent profit increase to £14.1m compared with £7.3m in the previous year. Sales also rose to £165.4m from £81m reported in 2008.”

A major back-office overhaul has supported the Asos’ positive performance. The programme covered buying, merchandising and fulfilment, with the rollout of a new warehouse management system at the firm’s Hemel Hempstead warehouse.

“Use of social media was also one of the highlights for the firm over the past year, with official pages being set up on Facebook, MySpace and Bebo.

With Twitter, the firm used a different approach, by allocating 55 staff members to actively talk to customers in addition to providing real-time news, offers and service updates. As a result, Asos now claims to have the largest Twitter following of all UK retailers.

Another initiative in social networking is the launch of Asos Life, a platform which allows customers to talk to each other and key people within the firm.

“It is clear that the structural shift to online continues and I believe that Asos is ideally placed to exploit it,” said chief executive Nick Robertson.”