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.)

Will the next generation of CIOs be more focused on the customer experience than ever before? Starbucks’ new CIO thinks so in this interview with CIO Magazine.  The interview highlights how Stephen Gillett is facing the challenge to take technology and use it to connect with Starbucks’ customers in whole new ways.

Why was the 32 year old hired? “What fascinated the leadership team was Stephen’s knowledge of where and how these consumers lived, and how he was technologically engaged with them. While he did not have the traditional retail IT experience, we wanted someone who was leading edge, who knew where the technology was evolving.” said Starbucks’ management team recruiter.

As retailers becoming increasingly focused on netting customers and keeping them faithful, can we expect to see the retail CIO out there supporting the marketers?

If recent experience is anything to go by, maybe we can – real-life examples of this are popping up all over the place. At a large department store in Manchester this week I was asked for detailed information for the first time, which was entered into a brand new terminal branded “CRM” at the top (subtle, but points for trying). Similarly the hotel I stayed at seemed extremely interested in understanding useful preferences and keeping in touch. If you are targeting retailers, take a look at this recent post highlighting their top 5 priorities.

A final point to note – the CIO magazine interview links to Gillett’s LinkedIn profile, where he has more than 500+ contacts listed, as well as groups he’s a member of, places he used to work and a link to his blog. If you’re building an account-based marketing campaign to reach him, you can start with a multitude of information that will give you a much greater chance of success. Not only does he list out his technological musings and leanings, but he’s a serious player of World of WarCraft, likes Seth Godin and his birthday is Jan 20th. How’s that for a starter for 10?

Mycustomer.com quoted Gartner today, saying that “customer relationship management is too strategically important for enterprises to abandon projects in the recession. As the recession deepens, however, enterprises are looking to drive greater efficiency and lower the costs of their CRM projects.

“Gartner estimates that CRM spending in 2009 will not decline as dramatically as it did after 2000, but growth will be more moderate than in previous years. It forecasts that the European CRM software market will reach $3.5 billion (€2.4billion) in 2009, an increase of 4% from 2008.

“When placed in the context of ongoing negative growth in the UK economy, which many predict will last until Q3 2009 or beyond, those are impressive figures.” See the whole mycustomer article here.

CIO Magazine’s article yesterday on whether IT can help retailers survive 2009 and thrive in 2010 pulls together its own research with that of Forrester, AMR, Northeastern University and Retail Systems.

It concludes that retailers should be using the current climate to challenge the status quo and make changes that can impact the bottom line within 12 months. CIO Magazine says that chief execs are asking IT to contribute to customer acquisition, customer retention and to drive innovative offerings. The article suggests that retailers are, or should be, focusing spend on 5 areas that can meet this brief:

• merchandise assortment and space planning, allocation and optimisation;
• regular price, promotion and markdown optimisation;
• instore systems such as point of sale, kiosks and mobile technologies aimed at improving the customer experience;
• cross-channel merchandising that improves channel visibility and connectivity and;
•  business intelligence that facilitates action.

IDC ’s 2009 tech sales barometer has just been released. Entitled Selling in 2009: 10 ways to find, win and keep the money it features the findings of its barometer study alongside its recommendations for tech sales people. Its key findings are summarised below, but the long and short of it is that sales teams are investing more in inside sales and demand generation techniques, whilst realising that they need to be more aligned with marketing on lead gen programmes. If there was ever an opportunity for marketing to work with sales more closely, as highlighted in my interview with Ron Rose of HP last week, or in the post on getting sales and marketing to collaborate on business development, it’s now.

-in 2009 tech sales teams will be expected to do more with less; as a result demand generation will be a major focus – most teams are shifting more budget to inside sales

-sales organisations that bolster dedicated investments in lead quality and demand generation will be rewarded with significantly higher sales productivity

- the research highlighted that sales teams were increasing investment in sales enablement, lead qualification and demand generation across the board, with budgets for sales’ travel and training being slashed

-shared metrics was highlighted as the area that sales and marketing are still least aligned, with sales people giving an alignment mark of  only 25 out of a possible 100.

Understanding how your audience will read and interact with your thought-leadership content is crucial in developing senior relationships and building reputation. A recent study into IT decision-makers’ reading habits highlighted a couple of useful points, and our thoughts on how to exploit them:

95% of people pass on interesting content to colleagues. 91% claimed to read more online now than 2 years ago. Package up information appropriately for the medium – keep online information tip- and list-based and use this as teaser content to lead your audience to longer downloads or to request hard copies of pieces with a longer narrative. The beauty of the teaser information is that it can be resused in myriad ways, all leading back to your central content: circulated throughout the IT online sites using comments fields, forming part of email communications, linked from LinkedIn profiles and group discussions etc.

Only 13% do work-related reading at work. The other 87% do it at home and when commuting (61% at home) Online information consumption is typically in small units, different from offline ”compendium style” reading. Whilst CD drive guides and mp3 downloads for commuters are worth considering – Marc Bresseel of Microsoft mentions on his blog what he’s taking to read on the plane on the way to his hols for example – why not send key contacts novel-sized collections of your best thought-leadership or top 5 most popular downloads.

Clearly the content needs to be compelling in the first place for these tips to work. But extra effort thinking through the content’s hazardous journey through the audience jungle will be well rewarded.

The full research findings are available from Vanson Bourne. A final point to note: a massive 99% of respondents include online sources when looking for information needed to support an IT decision (with 61% only doing a Google search for it)  See this earlier post about the importance of your organic search strategy and how buyers find you

Ever wondered what sales would do in your shoes with your budget? Want to know what sales people think are the most effective types of marketing programme? Ron Rose of HP Exstream, career IT salesman tells all…

How did you get started in IT, and what path has your career taken?

I got into IT by accident rather than design – a variety of early roles led to working for a company producing software and hardware to process cheque remittances. I had a mentor there who spotted the sales potential I had and I then took a sales role within a legal software company. At the time, software was urgently needed by legal firms, conveyancing levels were high, as was debt collection volume. Solicitors needed to computerise their time recording, start to use email, log and track documents – it was the ideal industry for technology. The company I worked for was acquired by Sanderson, one of its major products, Minder, monitored debt recovery for customers like Barclaycard. Tallyman, also a debt management product, was then developed by Sanderson. I was involved in the launch of the product and went on to sell it to customers like Lombard and British Gas and Barclays. I went on to join the London Bridge Software sales operation (later acquired by Fair Isaac) selling their Debt Manager product. After launching and running my own software reseller business for 3 years, I joined HP’s Exstream division about a year ago.

What has shaped the way you work with marketing?

During my time at Sanderson, I was actively involved in the development for a debt management software product called Tallyman. This was my first experience of developing a joint go-to-market strategy with the marketing team, and was instrumental in shaping the way I work with marketing departments now. I saw the power of merging the two disciplines during the Tallyman launch. Sales and marketing were heavily involved in all aspects, from the creation of the position and message through to the creative aspects, direct marketing and follow up. I had to work through the whole process: how do we express what this software does? How do we make the differences it has versus the competition clear? How can we get the message out? I developed an appreciation that getting all of that right is not easy. Throughout the process, sales and marketing were not two separate entities, and were never seen as such – perhaps it is the nature of a new product launch that it clarifies and makes urgent what needs to be done. As a result, we had such a dependency on each other to make Tallyman a success that I developed a deep understanding of and commitment to the marketing process.

The second major factor was an experience at London Bridge. In conjunction with the marketers, we created a joint go-to-market plan for Debt Manager. The plan was designed to support the sales process along the length of the sales funnel and sales and marketing worked together on this. Sales drove the intel from the perspective of what clients were feeling and needing, and marketing drove the positioning and messaging to attract the right type of people. They also provided the engine room to execute the programme. It was an integrated campaign that took place over the course of a year or so, and included multiple elements from seminars and thought-leadership to lead nurturing and more gentle contact activity. There was no formal “handover” point; more colleagues working together to develop a market and generate quality interest. It re-energised a whole market for London Bridge, made the product relevant to people’s challenges brought in great opportunities and have us a number of excuses to go back to people.

What changes have you seen in the way that sales and marketing work together since your experiences at Sanderson?

I’ve seen quite big changes. Marketing is less a department and more a process – more a science. In my experience, marketing teams have always been concerned with lead generation, but it used to be in the direct response arena. The marketing teams would send follow up letters and collateral after the salesman’s cold call. It’s more proactive now, plus lead generation is not the be-all-and-end-all, it’s a component of a much wider discipline.

Where can gaps between sales and marketing arise?

I’ve seen this in every IT organisation. There seems to be a cynicism, a kind of barrier, between sales and marketing people. I’m not sure why this arises, but in my view most marketing people seem very willing to engage in the lead generation process. Perhaps it happens because sales people just aren’t incentivised to engage with marketing. Sales training is also quite narrow – it doesn’t teach marketing engagement, which could be really helpful.

Poor mapping back to corporate objectives can often be to blame. The sales plan, the marketing plan and joint GTM plans have to back directly into the business’ strategy. Sales must sell what they have now, they can’t sell the future. Marketing have a more difficult balancing act; supporting now’s sales with tomorrow’s market and business development.

What’s the best example of marketing working well with you/the sales team?

It has to be the experience of the seminar campaign programme at London Bridge for Debt Manager. Why? Because in creating the GTM strategy we really questioned what we were doing. We reinvigorated a great product by building on its heritage and developed content that people wanted access to. We generated leads, all the time positioning us far enough from competitors that we were able to engage on our own terms. The programme enhanced our credibility as a company and the content we generated fed into the entire sales approach: sales pitches and bid support reinforced the messages and helped us close the deals.

What are the biggest opportunities sales and marketing have to work more closely together?

They are absolutely everywhere. It’s a question that’s very different because of the different cultures organisation to organisation. However, as a general point I would say that marketing people will get great knowledge and a lot of respect from getting more involved in the sales process itself. If they get out and meet customers, understand the products backwards, they can then get more involved in supporting the sales funnel right to the end. For example, a lot of bid documentation and presentations should have a marketing eye cast over them. Positioning, messaging, consistency – they’re critical in bids and marketing has a lot to add in this environment. I don’t believe in a designated handover point between sales and marketing, they should work together through the length of the funnel.

What would you spend marketing’s budget on if you had it?

If you asked 100 sales people, I suspect that 90 of them would say “corporate hospitality”. Partly because it’s a day out for them, and partly because they are incentivised around closing deals and the opportunity to build relationships is really valuable for them. Personally, I’d spend it on solid product awareness – being known by the right people for the right stuff. I’d want to make sure that I was automatically on the list to receive relevant RFIs; a seat at the table for big bids.

What are the most valuable things sales people get from marketing?

Lead generation without a doubt. It’s worth saying that lead numbers from marketing don’t impact my views of marketing effectiveness. My expectation as a salesperson is that I need and expect to be out there generating leads. If marketing’s doing its job well, that should be straightforward for me. Any leads I receive from marketing are a welcome bonus.

Market research is right up there too. There’s some great information and intelligence about competitors and key accounts around but I don’t always have time to track it all down. Marketing’s digest of this and view on what it means are really valuable.

The positioning, messaging and referenceability material is vital too.

What can sales teams do to work better with marketing?

The biggest battle is that sales need to believe in marketing. But sales teams are under pressure too, and the onus has to be on marketing to sell what it does and demonstrate the value. Best way to do that? It has to be to generate leads and work back from there. Marketers should work hard to develop joint GTM plans with sales and allocate a shared responsibility for its outcomes.

Understanding the psychology behind why people say “yes” can really improve both campaign planning and content. Psychologist Robert Cialdini has spent many years researching the factors of influence and persuasion and has identified the core ways in which they can be encouraged.

His book Influence is fascinating, but it’s how to exploit these techniques day-to-day campaign that’s important. Clearly there’s no substitute for great content and compelling communications, but using these methods as we’ve suggested below will definitely increase your chances of success. Here are two of the factors of influence and some ways that you could use them, I’ll cover the others in future posts:

“Much obliged…” If you feel indebted to someone else, you believe you have an obligation to return a favour, and will often go to quite staggering lengths to do so. Cialdini cites an experiment where a university professor sent Christmas cards to complete strangers and was staggered by the high number of cards received in return. In B2B marketing, we can use this technique in a number of ways:

-help someone do their job better – become a resource for them. If you can provide them with slideware or research that helps them prove their point, back up an investment case or provide a “quick-scan” guide to a new concept your content will be credited, circulated and used.
-be thoughtful – invite them to a genuinely useful event (see the Tom Ilube interview, where he says “All CIOs understand the game – they know that if they attend the event and get value from it, that they would give value back to that supplier by giving them some time face to face later on”)
-make someone feel you empathise with them and brighten their day: for example, someone sent me a very relevant Dilbert cartoon on marketing in the mail this week with a note attached, great for the standout factor
-consider the timing of your different communications too - if your recipient gets a useful download or research piece before you contact them, they’ll be more likely to speak to you than if you blasted out a non-personalised email saying “buy our stuff”.
 
“I do…” We all have a mental picture of ourselves, and we will always look to act in ways that back that up. Basically, we all try to act in ways that are consistent with our previous actions and beliefs. This is known as consistency, and when used in combination with commitment it’s very powerful. If you can get someone to commit to an idea or goal, they are more likely to honour that commitment. Cialdini describes an experiment where researchers, posing as sunbathers at a beach, picked fellow sunbathers at random and put a towel down nearby. Pretending to go for a walk, another researcher posing as a thief then stole the radio the researcher had left on the towel. Only 4 in 20 of the sunbathers said anything to stop the “theft”. In the next test on a different group, the researchers asked the sunbathers to “keep an eye on my stuff”. In 19 of the 20 cases the sunbathers turned into veritable vigilantes, chasing the thief and even holding him down to stop him running away. Some thoughts on ways this can be used:

-read quotes, keynotes, results presentations (from the individual you’re targeting and the company) and approach them in a way consistent with their stated goals and previous behaviours (as well as the company’s brand values). If they’ve made a commitment to something (best company to work for, green goals, locally-minded) then use this in your approach
-make a strenuous effort to confirm people’s places at your event as soon as they have indicated they will attend. Mention who else is attending, how they’ve also made the commitment to go, explain what’s being done and laid on, what the benefit will be, reinforce the exclusivity and the limited spaces
-consider how your calls to action can encourage people to act in a way clearly in accordance with their self image, and how you can encourage them to make a commitment on this basis. If it’s likely people will perceive themselves as time-poor then openly acknowledge this in your communications and provide them with multiple quick ways to respond
-Personalisation comes into its own here. Just a small amount of research into name, role and function can have a big impact

It’s worth noting that these work best between people, rather than companies. If the recipient thinks it’s a real person inviting them to a useful event then it will clearly bring obligation into play in a much bigger way than sending the invitation from sales@companyx. That’s why in almost all cases, something that feels hearfelt and personal will work better than even the most stunning branding.

This photo was taken in Asda Walmart in Swindon on Saturday. This is about 1/3 of the checkout queues that stretched up and down the front of the store. As the man behind me in the queue commented “I’ve never seen it like this, not even at Christmas”. He’d driven nearly an hour to get to the store by the way.

If it’s indicative of Asda’s trade as a whole then it’s a very good reason to undertake sub-vertical targeting. “Retail” as a whole might be very challenging right now, but targeting the sub-verticals, the grocery and discounting areas, could prove very fruitful. 

Companies are increasingly turning to outsourcing in a recession, claimed IBM’s CFO Mark Loughridge, as the company unveiled 4th quarter results ahead of expectations (net income of $4.4bn on revenue of $27bn) on Tuesday.

UKHotViews said on Jan 21st that “Wipro sees 24% European growth” and on 19th December claimed that (as a bellwether of the outsourcing market) Accenture’s 6% revenue growth is “solid and encouraging” with outsourcing the best performer, up 7%. The report claims “outsourcing really is the place to be in a downturn – helping your customers to save money.”

In its report “What’s in store for outsourcing in 2009?” IT World quotes Gartner analyst Linda Cohen as saying “Whenever there’s a downturn people outsource more, not less. Organizations want to take costs out wherever they can.” However, the piece claims that outsourcing will increasingly flourish in a “different” way – with cost, consolidation and the ‘green’ing of industries being major factors. We think trust will be a major factor too.