Paul Dunay, Global Director of Integrated Marketing for BearingPoint was recently interviewed by Britton Manasco. He gives some very useful tips for marketers wanting to further the reach of their thought leadership content and use it more effectively to drive people  into your lead nurturing process. He recommends the creation (or outsourcing) of a “content factory” to kick start this.

Paul says, “don’t hand me just the white paper.  Hand me the white paper, hand me the landing page, hand me the blog content, hand me the key words, hand me the email post and then I can get that to the interactive team.  The interactive team can just begin to formulate it and distribute it in places it needs to be distributed. I can post it to our RSS feed, post it to the blog, maybe do a podcast around it. The team can make that very systematic. I think this is going to be key for us because the day of thought leadership being just the white paper is over.”

I’ve attached a slide highlighting our own approach to the ”next generation” content factory. It is designed to maximise impact and reach of thought-leadership content by helping B2B marketers blend traditional and new publishing techniques. Download it here.

(Note additionally the potential for making the very creation of the content a more collaborative process – for example, ask your readers for hot topics to cover or questions they want the answer to, through the social media tools at your disposal.)

What a week it was last week. The world is changing before our eyes.

What interested financial services companies a week ago may well now hit a brick wall. Our business intelligence team, calling into banks this week on behalf of various clients, have been met with everything from “I’ve just been made redundant” to “I don’t know what’s going on, I simply can’t talk to you – it’s all up in the air.”

So what action can you take, right now, to keep on generating leads? To make sure your marketing messages will continue to strike home?

1. Talk to your customers, more on this below

2. Find out where there is still opportunity to sell. (we’re tracking several of these areas – get in touch if you want to sign up for our email newsletters on this)

3. Find cost-effective ways of getting your message in front of people – and prove why you are worth their time

Our own experience, only last week, was showing that what mattered a month ago is seen as frivolous now. The unusual market conditions are definitely creating opportunities but they are not always immediately obvious.

To use a B2C example, The Sunday Times reported yesterday that John Lewis has seen a 247% increase in sales of hot water bottles versus this time last year. Presumably this is people trying to conserve their cash by keeping the central heating switched off. Makes thrifty sense, but not an immediately obvious market opportunity.

It goes to show that, in a time of unprecedented goings-on, no-one can know for sure what will work. For B2B, it’s back to basics marketing – the most important action you can take is to get out there and ask some questions of your clients.

Ask them how, in this new environment, they will be making decisions, ask what are the pressures they’re facing, and what is valuable to them now. Understand how their own customers are behaving. You need to really understand both of these aspects to be able to put together proposition and messages that will engage them in uncharted territory.

We’ve made available our own client insight questionnaire to speed things up for you. Download it here: customer-insight-questionnaire.Your buyers’ worries (and their urgent need for future performance) are a real opportunity – if you understand them properly.

Technorati Profile

Picture the scene: a run-of-the-mill proposition, being taken into a crowded market… hardly unusual in more established business-to-business markets.

Whatever the reason, sometimes a lead generation campaign needs to work extra hard, which is where these approaches can come in useful. None of them are easy to deliver – they all demand careful messaging and execution, and they’re all about creating content of interest above and beyond any solution proposition.

1. Let your customers do the talking
   Client references are like gold dust – but it needs more than an A4 case study to inspire an audience. So what are the other options for applying client references to lead generation?

   Consider hosting an event on a client site (it can be a good promotional boost for your client, and it is certainly more appealing for prospects). Or think about what prospects would really want to hear – not necessarily the standard challenges, solution, benefits structure, but a more ‘warts and all’ overview of the project.

2. Complete personalisation
   Not just merging a name or two, but getting under the skin of the target and creating something that they can relate to 100%. With digital printing, the idea of personalising a mailer is becoming more common, but creating a campaign from the ground up around the prospects is another thing entirely.

   Examples include the ‘future case study’ (written from the perspective of a prospect, explaining what the future looks like if they choose your solution). But as with all of these ideas, it’s the business message and creative execution that are key to success.

3. The mystery shopper
   What intelligence can you offer a prospect that will help them see the need for your solution, or (even better) help them do their job more effectively. Can you find out what their customers think, or prove that they are struggling with issues that you could solve?
4. Sell the next step
   More of an ethos for the three above than a technique in its own right, perhaps (hence 3, not 4 in the title). This one is all about taking a step back from the core proposition that the campaign is generating leads for, and thinking more about the kind of leads that are required.

   Need a first meeting with a prospect? Sell the meeting: what have you got that is worth an hour of their time? What value can you offer? How can we pitch a first meeting so that it doesn’t sound like a hard sell?

So what do they have in common? They are all hard work – relatively speaking, it is easy to create a website, or email, or mailer, or event that promotes the benefits of a solution. These ideas are all about added value, wider content, campaigns that start well before the communication piece is sent out.

* Given great messaging, pinpoint targeting and flawless execution. Your home may be at risk if you do not keep up repayments on a mortgage or other loan secured on it.

Yesterday I wrote a post on how to argue a case for your marketing budget.

But what if you’re not sure you’ve got a strong case to start with? Here’s a checklist to make sure you’ve thought through all the angles before you go in for the meeting with the CFO. (If you didn’t get it yesterday, here’s a download summarising other useful stats and links to online B2B marketing budget resources. Marketing Investment – Resources Sheet)

1. Have you started with a clean sheet of paper? Have you questioned old or inherited assumptions? Don’t use last year’s budget as a starting point, it will often lead you to make the same mistakes.
2. Have you budgeted on the basis of what you are paying now? Can you get things cheaper through better buying practices? Manage costs through prudent buying, investigate alternatives for spend rather than assuming it will cost the same this year as it did last year.
3. Have you looked hard enough at the people and skills side? Do you have what you need, or are you living with what you have? Have you considered outsourcing rather than increasing headcount or replacing leavers?
4. Have you budgeted programmes rather than lines? Line-based thinking can lead you from where the real issues are with marketing programmes. Sometimes changing creative or changing tactic masks a fundamental problem with the marketing strategy itself. You can also make a much more effective business case for a programme than a single line.
5. Have you cut out costs by standardising production? Adopt marketing agency type-approaches to numbers of authors’ amends you will allow internally. Impose SLAs on yourself and your team to uphold and improve the services you provide to the business.
6. Have you looked at where you can adopt new purchasing and manufacturing techniques within your job or team? Consider a “just in time” approach to content generation for example. Review your processes and look to minimise waste wherever possible?
7. Ask yourself a lot of tough questions – do you absolutely have to do things? Have you challenged received wisdom that certain activities work – are you sure they don’t just make people feel good? Do you have measures from previous years that can back you up?
8. Have you focused your spend on improving what really matters to the business? (Leads generated, a better conversion rate, customer loyalty increase?, larger average £ sale per customer, increased profitability per customer?)
9. Have you projected the revenue stream from your activity forward rather than looking back? Different activity, in a different market or at a different time will give different results. Look forward over the coming year with your assumptions, don’t base this year’s marketing on last year’s revenues.
10. If you have multiple products or services, have you budgeted differently for them depending upon the corporate objectives, aspirations and markets for each?
11. Are you being asked to do too much with too little? Avoid the “marketing always wants more budget” accusation. Be clear and realistic – don’t be pressured into agreeing to achieve myriad objectives with insufficient resources. You will fail to achieve your objectives and undermine the reputation of marketing.
12. Are there other areas of the business that will impact your success? Should you make a case for the marketing spend in these areas too? (Customer care, sales and bid support, internal communications.)
13. Have you pre-identified points throughout the year when you are willing to sit back down the CFO and review your progress and the returns you are generating?

Locking horns with the CFO or CEO over B2B marketing budgets? Here are 9 ways to argue a strong case.

Plus – struggling with where to start or how to put the budget together in the first place? We’ve collated the most useful starting points from our own desk research. Download it here – Marketing Investment – Resources Sheet.

1. Start by completely aligning your proposed marketing plan with the business plan – draw a straight line between what the company wants to achieve and what you are planning to do. Explain in detail exactly how it will contribute. Have the company’s stated strategic plan with you on the day.
2. Measure what matters, not what’s easy – use metrics that the CEO and CFO will genuinely care about. Pipeline, lead generation, increased revenue from existing accounts and new business. You will be measuring a lot of other things too, but these are the numbers they want to understand your contribution to.
3. Use the right language – talk about investment rather than spend. Argue a solid business case. Focus on short term ROMI (sales leads for today) and longer term ROMI (an easier selling environment for tomorrow). Explain for each budget line what you are targeting the return on investment to be and why.
4. Help the CFO achieve his/her ends – suggest that the marketing spend be amortised as the benefit is realised. We’ve also seen a number of companies who account for their marketing spend only when they see the actual benefit from the campaign (typically when the deliverables hit).
5. Use standard sales terminology – map your programmes against the sales funnel, visually if possible, showing how your plans will contribute to driving prospects through that funnel.
6. Get the sales director behind you – if you’re already delivering leads, use this to support your case. If not, make a start on sales-approved programmes and use the sales director to support your case before the meeting.
7. Don’t forget to map against profitability targets as well as revenue targets. Demonstrate how your programmes will increase average sale per customer, keep customers loyal for longer or retain more of them.
8. The CFO can’t argue with what the customer is saying. Poll your customer and prospect base about what they want and expect from you marketing-wise. Take visuals in with you to demonstrate what is needed. See my recent post on how CIOs like to be marketed to as an example of the kind of first-hand information you can use to back up your case.
9. Remember to sell the plan just as hard as you explain it. Enthusiasm is infectious.

Keeping up with the rapid changes in IT world and B2B at the same time is a big challenge. But many successful lead generation campaigns owe much to their timing. So for those interested in producing great marketing to generate leads at an enterprise level, it’s key to have access to the latest thinking on B2B as well as the latest news on IT. Here’s a manageable list of some of the best blogs around for keeping posted on both.

I’d recommend pulling all these and other favourite resources onto your desktop using a free RSS reader like NewsGator.

The FT’s Tech blog http://Blogs.ft.com/techblog
Computer Weekly’s Making IT Happen blog
http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/cio-making-it-happen-blog/
Paul Dunay’s blog http://buzzmarketingfortech.blogspot.com
Brian Carroll’s blog http://blog.startwithalead.com/
Chris Brogan’s blog http://www.chrisbrogan.com
The Enterprise Irreguars Blog www.enterpriseirregulars.com
Forrester’s Marketing blog http://blogs.forrester.com/marketing/
The Marketing Pilgrim blog http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/
David Meerman Scott’s blog http://www.webinknow.com/
Micropersuasion blog http://www.micropersuasion.com
Nicholas Carr’s blog http://www.roughtype.com
The B2B International blog http://b2binternational.com/b2b-blog/

Emergency event turnaround… OK, so you’re reading this a little late (see part one of this post on getting events right first time) and you’ve sent out email blasts and mailers in the thousand to your event about version 6.3.1.7’s new grey button and the takers aren’t exactly flooding in. Or, you think you’ve done everything right and you honestly can’t understand why things are just not going your way. Your sales team needs the leads and all eyes are on you; what to do?

Appraise your event very critically. What’s not working? Is the timing a challenge (it could be school holidays). Is the content not chiming well (did the last big industry conference already cover your topic in the same way?) Ideally you don’t want to second guess this – call a few of the non-takers and ask them honestly why they don’t want to attend. Focus on the area they are outlining: it’s normally to do with content (interest factor), speakers (authority/scarcity) or convenience (they can’t get there, or it’s too much effort to get there). Download this free event countdown tool to help you with timings.

B2B events: tip sheet 2. Rescue rangers

1. Boost the interest factor
   Unless you’ve booked your event on a remote island, the primary reason for poor take up is likely to be poor content. Any business event featuring Richard Branson or Derren Brown is going to be full. Why? Yes, the cachet of their names and fame, but they are famous because of the quality of their content. Branson on his life story and business approach, Derren for psychological tricks and persuasion techniques. It doesn’t matter if your speakers aren’t known but you need to market their interest factor and reason for having authority in the field just as much as you need to stress the quality of the content. Plus, on the day, the speakers need to live up to the hype otherwise you’ll have a full event but not a great one that makes people keep coming back. Seth Godin makes a great point in his blog about ensuring if you are going to get people to come, the event’s really worthwhile.Be deliberately provocative in the communications if you can. You might consider retitling the event. The B2B IT industry loves its long words. To engage interest, think tabloid headlines for your event title and presentation titles. “Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster” is infinitely better than “Previously Little-Known British Comedian Digests Small Captive Rodent”. Our last event was called “The Naked Decision Maker” (but we could easily have called it “How The Recipients of Your Marketing Activity Perceive It.” You can look to TV formats for inspiration; Dragon’s Den, Big Brother, The Weakest Link.
2. Swap out the speakers
   Add a new speaker, or change the one(s) you have. If any of the presentations look like a pitch, take them out or refocus them. Use the change as an opportunity to recommunicate with the audience. “New speaker added, the author of the book “Killer Outsourcing” Bob Peters, who also writes the #1 blog on outsourcing.”
3. Make it more convenient
   If the event date, timing or location is an issue for everyone, or the majority, change it. You can change the date if you need to, but often simply switching from morning to evening or a full day to a half day can really help. Change the format, condense the timing into a rapid-fire learning session. People prefer punchy 20 minute presentations over 1 hour marathons every time. Can you shorten it? Consider offering two places/bring a colleague; some people don’t want to attend on their own. If it’s a high profile event and you can afford it, consider offering free transport to and/or from the event. If you can’t change the date but some key contacts can’t make it, give them a call and ask (a) whether you can bring the content to them (b) whether the content would be of interest to anyone in the company.
4. Make it sound unmissable
   People are insecure at heart. Give them reasons they can’t afford to miss it. The “No FT, No Comment” approach. Tell them that they will hear something for the first time at the event. Explain what tools they will be given that will help them do their jobs better. Create a list of other organisations who are already attending the event ie, if it’s a retail focused event say, “Senior representatives from Tesco, Boots and Starbucks have already secured their places.” Consider adding job titles too, if seniority is an issue.
5. Make it easier to sign up
   Amazing how many invitations demand the recipient to make a phone call to book a space at the event. Add more response mechanisms to the emails. Fax backs still get a great response from a senior audience in the UK; it’s easy for the exec to tick “yes” or “no” and get the PA to fax it back. Give your sales team a quota to bring a couple of people each.

If all else fails, don’t fret. Some excellent events are run with few delegates; it does encourage better debate. Relook at the format to add further opportunity for debate and questions. If you’re worried about the room looking too empty and you can’t change it, think of creative uses for the other half of the room and make it look like you meant to do that all along. (Exhibition area, demos, TV room, breakout area, coffee and Wifi areas for example)

If you only have one or two signed up the a few days before, cancel the event and make appointments to see signed up delegates individually to run in house events for them and their teams. These appointments can often be extremely fruitful. At The Marketing Practice, we often find that we gather as many sales-ready leads among people that can’t attend an event as from registered delegates but only with a well thought-through offer as part of a complete strategy wider than any specific event.

Ahhh, the joy of being Steve Jobs. You mention that you’ll be launching your latest ithing at an upcoming event and there isn’t a seat left in the house (or a dry eye). No worries here about delegate numbers or drop out rates. But what about the rest of us in B2B marketing, organising our own events selling the latest middleware or systems integration services? Recent research shows that IT decision makers only attend about 5 events per year (download the research paper here for free). How are you going to convince them to come to yours?

But I love a good event. Events are great galvanisers of marketing action. Where direct campaigns can slip and lose traction, there’s nothing like a deadline at which people have to stand up in public to ensure the marketing gets out there. And they generate great leads and relationships.

I’ll cover two things this week. Today some thoughts on stopping the “there’s two weeks left to go and we’ve got 6 people signed up” from happening in the first place. Tomorrow, what to do if this is happening to you right now. If you’re thinking about organising an event, try this simple event countdown tool. (Event Countdown Tool)

Getting events right first time, every time

If you believe that your proposition alone won’t cut the mustard to get the right people along, something else needs to do it. Don’t think about marketing the event in terms of drilling home what your latest widget can do, think about what will make it a truly compelling and interesting event for the audience and go from there. Put on a show.

If version 6.3.1.7 of your product isn’t going to materially change their world (or more importantly, if it’s impossible to genuinely convince them it’s going to via direct marketing) don’t make it the focus of your event.

B2B events: tip sheet 1. Right first time

1. People first, not product
   Think about the audience. What kind of people are they? Do they like networking or not? Do they want to play with the latest technology or learn about global business themes? What’s preoccupying them? What’s their biggest challenge? What do they want to learn? Who do they want to meet? What’s been written in their market recently that they want to understand more about? Find up-and-coming authors or bloggers in your field, they can cost a lot less in speakers’ fees than you think.
2. Think Amex Black card
   Everyone wants and is intrigued by the “invitation only” Amex Black card. Can you really buy a Rolls Royce Phantom on it? Do they even exist? People want to come to events that feel more exclusive, which are hard to get into, or at which something is being given away that feels scarce. For example, Stephen Worchel’s pyschological experiment into the desirability of scarce things found that when there were only a few cookies in the jar they were rated as more desirable than cookies with plenty in the jar. Cialdini who writes on the psychology of persuasion says, “The joy is not in experiencing a scarce commodity but in possessing it. What can you do to make the event feel exclusive? What can they get if they come to the event (and only from the event)?
3. Stage an experience, not a powerpoint endurance challenge
   Can the event itself be an event? Innocent Smoothies knows that people won’t get out of bed purely to drink a smoothie at an event, so they create an annual Innocent Village Fete. It’s a mini open-air concert, and they get to own, sponsor and tailor the whole experience. I’ve seen great business events themed as the “summer of love”, or a 1920s speakeasy. Can you give your event a compelling theme? We use an S&M theme in our quarterly Sales & Marketing forum events, and theme the invites with rubber boots and ropes, book a sleek and sexy hotel and have even invented our own S&M Cocktail (Here’s the recipe: S&M Cocktail.doc). You can take inspiration from web 2.0 and get the audience suggesting what they want to hear on the day: get them emailing in.
4. Nine out of ten audience members who expressed a preference said they preferred content
   You are asking people to take a significant chunk out of their working day. They don’t want to be pitched at. You’re reading this because you want to learn something (you lovely foolish individual) not because you want to buy something from me. Of course you’ll buy in time (oh yes you will), but first you want to check out whether it’s worth your while. Your audience will be no different. Look back at step one and craft great content delivered by speakers in authority. What will your audience learn on the day that will help them do their job better? Reinforce this on the invite. Look at best-selling “how to” books and copy the style on the back cover in your invitation material. i.e at this event, you will learn how to do X, Y Z
5. Leave plenty of time
   Pity the senior executive and their time-poor diaries. Their endless round of conference calls and meetings means that you need to leave at least 12 weeks from invitations going out to the day of the event (also allows for the corrective actions in part two of this post if things go wrong.) Mix up your comms channels as you go, some email, some by hand from the sales team, some via the post, altering the messaging on each and measuring the inbound response. PS. It is almost impossible to convince someone on the phone to attend an event if they’ve already decided not to. And you shouldn’t be trying it, you’ll damage your reputation. So don’t bash the phones in an attempt to get more delegates. You should go for a teleservice approach instead. A lot of people set the invite to one side before deciding whether to attend and it gets buried. So on the phone just say I’m calling to check you received the invite OK and to find out whether you’re planning on coming or not? If you’re not planning on attending, is there someone else in your organisation I should send an invite to?”
6. Don’t overlook networking opportunities
   At one of our recent events networking was rated as one of the major reasons delegates attended. Build networking opportunities into your events where at all possible. Perhaps a few beers in buckets at the end of the event, speed-business dating or a full scale cocktail party. Leave time for it. Consider how you might be able to facilitate it online through your own website, or if the events are regular, or user-group based, how you can use social networking tools liked LinkedIn or Facebook.
7. Sweep up the nos and the no-shows
   If someone can’t come or doesn’t turn up on the day that shouldn’t preclude them from your marketing efforts. Before the event, if they say no during the follow up, offer them an opportunity for someone to come to their office and share some of the best content with them. After the event, offer the nos and the no shows an audio CD of the best presentations for their car, or a document outlining the major new points discussed. Put edited excerpts on YouTube and provide a link from your site and send emails directing them to it.

I wanted to highlight a new set of tools that are posted at http://www.themarketingpractice.com/practices/account-based-marketing.php.

It is fairly easy to buy into the theory behind account-based marketing (ABM): companies can make a lot more out of their existing clients, and marketing has a major role to play in driving this revenue.

But every project needs to start somewhere. Which accounts to focus on? How to gather intelligence on them? How to convert this intelligence into actionable marketing activities that support sales? My favourite tool is the ‘wheel of death’ that highlights the range of options available for companies looking to pursue account-based marketing all the way from profiling target organisations and decision-makers, through selecting the relevant propositions, to 7 different kinds of communication activity.

One piece of advice: don’t stop with gathering intelligence on target accounts (the more theoretical approach to account-based marketing). The real results from ABM come when marketing actively gets in touch with decision-makers.