I wanted to share some interesting stats from a set of campaigns we are running for an IT company. This is a very focused industry campaign, and as such was targeted at the same data set over a period of months. The campaign had a very clear journey along which it drove the recipient, (a mixture of offering value and sales messages) and whilst each had different creative treatments, the messages built into a cohesive picture and were followed up by our in-house inside sales team.

Of 100% of leads we handed over to our client:

• 40% required two campaigns to develop into a lead
• 35% required three campaigns to develop into a lead
• 22% required four campaigns to develop into a lead

This just goes to show that a longer-term, nurturing approach bears a good deal of lead generation fruit. This is especially true when you are taking complex propositions into complex organisations. It can take time to introduce yourself, educate people, and get them to take the next step.

By running one campaign and moving on you’re certainly missing out on further opportunities. Instead, focus on working the data, and building a longer-term set of campaigns that have the ability to learn from telemarketing input about what resonates and develop the recipients’ perception as they are delivered. This method of campaigning also has the added benefit of allowing you to add contacts you are passed onto during the first phase of calling into the wider campaign approach.

In a few weeks’ time, I’ll be interviewing one of the UK’s leading ICT analysts, Richard Holway. Known by the FT as the “wise grey owl” of tech, and previously Group Marketing Director of Hoskyns (now Capgemini), I’ll be asking Richard about his views on the future of the enterprise tech industry, and what that means for how marketers should be adapting their strategies and plans.

It promises to be a fascinating set of insights. If you have a question you’d like me to put to Richard, please write it in the comments field of this post.

As I’ve argued in previous posts, when one of the first places people look for information these days is the web you simply can’t ignore it. There are innumerable articles on SEO, but for me it all boils down to this – if someone is out there, Googling for a product or service, or even just some advice, in an area you can help in, they should be able to find you and want to click to read more.

Advice from author and consultant Verne Harnish got me thinking about this again. He was recently quoted as saying ”control the ink in your industry… own a word or two in your industry and then get about controlling the ink around that word – books, articles, blogs, wikis, etc. And how do you know if you’re making progress? Google your word(s) and see where you rank.”

In his email update this week, Verne shares an email from Adam Robinson, President of Illuma LLC, ”I wanted to share with you a major impact you’ve made to my business. I listened as you told us, ‘if you’re not blogging about your business or your industry, you’re losing out on an amazing opportunity. Try it for 6 months, and see what happens.’ So, I did. My company is in the business of helping companies find and select talent and since August of 2008 I’ve been blogging at http://BetterHiringToday.com. What started off as a ‘let’s see if I can do this’ side project has turned into a catalyst for a whole new way of looking at the world.
A few key results:
• the VP of Sales at a Fortune 50 company read my 4-part series on “How to Hire Salespeople” and sent me an email hiring us on the spot.
• Publishers have republished my articles, and paid me to license content that I was happy to post for free. Unbelievable!
• Web traffic to my business website is up over 300%, with inbound web leads up over 600%. Several of my posts are on Page 1 on Google for organic results (i.e. “recruiting templates”, “30 60 90 Day Plans”)
• Since I’m always looking for new things to write about, I’m out talking with more customers, and in more meaningful ways, about things that they care about. I then write about what we discussed, and send them a note telling them so. Loyalty has skyrocketed.”

Need I say more? Clearly for large firms with strong SEO programmes some of these issues are in hand, but how often do they get applied to campaign-based content? (often the very content your customers are mst interested in reading). I’m not advoating everyone should emulate Mr Robinson and start a blog, but if you can support your campaigns with compelling online content that brings the interested market to your door, then it simply has to be an essential part of today’s campaigning approach.

April 2nd’s New York Times reported the then-growing rumour that IBM was to buy Sun Microsystems for $7bn. The deal could easily increase IBM’s hold on some key hardware and software markets, especially as regards datacentres. However, reports out late yesterday suggested that the deal had collapsed after Sun’s board ”balked” at reduced offer and IBM withdrew it.

We’ve been tracking for a few weeks now the growing opportunity for propositions related to e-commerce.

The last time there was such a flurry of interest in online retailing was probably nearly ten years ago. The pace of change in e-commerce adoption seems to have been accelerated by the recession, with new research showing that 65% of UK spenders are planning on increasing the amount they spend online in order to save money.

Here are a few choice articles… highlighting e-commerce growth at many large and high profile retailers:

CIO Magazine says French Connection is losing money but the e-commerce side of the busines is growing

M&S’s results highlight an online rise in sales in their recent, better than expected, results

John Lewis to launch designer fashion web store in response to sales increase of more than 24% at John Lewis Direct

Dominos Pizza sees 74% increase in web revenue in 2008

Tesco looks to web to revive sales

…and it isn’t only e-commerce: the trouble for retailers is creating outsourcing opportunities too.

Iceland signs outsourcing services deal

Research carried out by The Marketing Practice shows that IT companies are overlooking, and in some cases wasting, sales opportunities with the very companies they are closest to – their existing customers.

The 110 UK IT decision-makers we interviewed said that “information from existing suppliers” was their preferred way of finding out about new IT products and services. They rated this information source as highly as they rated their own networks (and above analysts and consultants). 

But at the same time, nearly half of all those surveyed said, “Current suppliers are quite poor in their account marketing and management”  and a similar percentage agreed that, “IT suppliers do not really understand how to communicate information about their products and services to me”, highlighting a huge missed opportunity.

So, your existing customers don’t just highly rate you as a source of information, they expect you to market to them. But as these verbatim quotes from the research show, there are a number of considerations in getting it right…

1. A joined up approach to sales and marketing communications (that finishes what it starts)… “Too often we are contacted several times by different people in different divisions of the same supplier who don’t seem to talk to each other and there is usually no follow up process. There are no solutions, only proposals.” Senior IT Manager in a Financial Services Organisation

2. And end to the “one hit wonder” marketing communications campaigning approach (by promoting once, and moving on, you’re mising a number of opportunities)… “Sometimes you get an Account Manager who starts to wine and dine you as they think they may get new orders out of you. When they realize there are no more orders the communication stops again.” Head of Application Development in a Media Company.

And…“If [a supplier] phones me today, it  might not be relevant to me at the moment but if they phone me in three months time, I might be interested in that topic.” Head of IT in a Financial Services Organisation

3. A clear account plan that’s shared with the customer (with a marketing plan that sits alongside it)… “They have to approach us at the right time with the right solutions; existing  suppliers have a better opportunity of interacting with us compared to new ones.” Head of Engineering and Infrastructure in a Finance Company.

And… “Existing suppliers are in a very privileged position in that, if they are communicating with their customers as well as they should be, they will know what solutions customers are looking for at any time.  What good marketing looks like from existing suppliers is a call, e-mail or letter offering a solution just when you are looking for it.” Head of IT in a Government Department

Whilst it’s understandable to focus on lead generation in the current climate, don’t let it blindside your strategy. Paradoxically, it’s the very campaigns that take the long view and look to build relationships that uncover the sales opportunities that others don’t even make the shortlist for.

You can download a free copy of the research findings here.

For the second quarter in a row, McKinsey’s economic snapshot survey shows senior execs saying that things haven’t got worse, but they don’t expect an improvement any time soon. This chimes with what you hear out and about; business isn’t brilliant, but it isn’t bad either - a lot of people are waiting it out, to “see what happens”. McKinsey’s report calls it “a gloomy economic stasis”.

But short of gagging Robert Peston to increase the country’s optimism levels, how to beat the economic stasis, and keep the leads coming in and converting?

It’s interesting to note that whilst the McKinsey report points to continued cost reduction, it also highlights a heavy focus on operational efficiency and improving productivity. Plus, when executives were asked whether they were seeking external funding, most said they were not, but that the bulk of those who were, were using it for investment, geographic expansion and innovation. Additonally, half of all companies surveyed expected to shed staff in 2009.

So the drivers are there for spend on IT, outsourcing and services. But how to get those leads and convert them? Here are some points to consider:

-How about offering access to great content and ready-made, industry specific business cases? (doing more with less, how to maintain customer service levels after cutting staff, building remote workforces…) Go further than traditional marketing content and sales support tools – get in touch with project teams and ask for their solution-based content to give real war stories and meat to campaigning materials.

-Perhaps provocation marketing would bear fruit with some targets. (see the earlier article “Lead gen in a downturn: is provocation the answer?”) This involves going beyond solution selling and provoking the customer to buy through a series of highly-researched and targeted joint sales and marketing campaigns.

-Gather like-minded people together from different target industries to learn from each other. Develop the content of the workshop from new, fascinating and fast research and get a facilitator who’s been through the mill to ensure that a genuine and honest exchange of issues and ideas happens. Feed this content back to delegates with a detailed description of how you can help, with tools and documents downloadable/available to help them sell it within their own businesses.

-It follows from the above that supporting sales teams through account-based and narrow-cast marketing activity will bear fruit. By researching specific account needs in detail and building a plan of attack with sales (from lead to win) you stand a much better chance of shaping leads before they get to RFI stage. You can download our free ABM planner here.

The McKinsey survey results are available here, but please note it is premium content.

IT analyst TechMarketView’s bulletin this morning reporting on Ernst & Young’s ASAPTech event was fascinating. It reports comments made by John Suffolk, Her Majesty’s Government’s Chief Information Officer for Transformational Government, giving his views on how IT vendors should work with Government.

Amongst the varied comments from the Government’s most senior IT man (covering his views on Cloud through to offshoring), the major line that stood out for me was the comment that “the average tender process takes 76 weeks and vendors can spend up to £10m on their bids.”

With the recession biting, and government being the spender of last resort, IT government projects are being eyed up by even more vendors than ever before. Clearly these bids can chew up years and millions. For marketers, it’s important to have a very solid account-based and bid-winning focus.

You can read Anthony Miller’s full write up of Suffolk’s comments here on TechMarketView’s website.

Benchmark spending research from Sirius Decisions out this month claims that B2B marketers are doubling their spend on pipeline acceleration programmes.

“After initial knee-jerk budget cuts, data from numerous business-to-business benchmarks conducted since October 2008 reveal that leading companies are wisely repositioning their marketing strategies and tactics — rejecting a ‘defensive posture’ by still working to close deals or at least lay groundwork for future business despite buyer anxiety and retrenchment,” says Alden Cushman, SiriusDecisions’ research director.

The research found that marketers are changing the make-up of their programs to be closer to field activity, shifting the focus more on clients and current deals. As a result, the mix of lead generation, pipeline acceleration and client retention programs has shifted significantly.

“From discussions with clients we’ve benchmarked, we estimate B2B companies are doubling their number of pipeline acceleration programs,” says Mr. Cushman. “Instead of focusing on generating new leads, these programs represent a more effective way for marketing to impact the extended sales cycle by helping to move deals that have stalled in the pipeline. Without question, the economy is driving this trend, as the program numbers we’re seeing are now more in balance with specific sales requirements.”

Traditional marketing programes have struggled to support the lead throughout the funnel from “lead gen” to “close”. New thinking around account-based (ABM) and narrow-cast marketing is making this a thing of the past. By designing campaigns around the customer journey, and focusing on issues on a client-by-client basis, lead drop-out rates can be reduced and win rates increased. Download our ABM planning tool here, or get in touch with us for a free ABM session which will detail how you can practically approach ABM.

More than 90 percent of UK finance directors in the B2B sector support the idea that companies should ‘market’ their way out of the recession, according to new research by WPP Lightspeed reported by B2B Marketing magazine.

When surveyed, most finance bosses said they believed undertaking such action would help their company to gain market share as the economy recovered. 84% of FDs favoured the idea of further investment in marketing and customer analysis as a way of countering the downturn.

Sectors that exceeded this national average included; banking, insurance and finance at 89 percent, travel and transport at 90 percent, utilities and telecommunications at 91 percent and, crucially, IT communications and hi-tech at 93 percent. Respondents from larger businesses were significantly more supportive of investment than their smaller business counterparts.

So it appears the potential for maintaining and even increasing marketing budget remains. But marketers will need to demonstrate prudent choices, healthy pipeline and ultimately a superb return on investment.