CIO’s list of the top 100 IT spenders in the UK is now available here http://www.cio.co.uk/cio100/companies/.
Some of the more detailed company profiles have useful intel on their operations and infrastructure (hardware, software, Database, BI etc), plus good soundbites from CIOs. Brilliant stuff for key account planning and account based marketing.
In enterprise B2B markets, selling the product or service out of the gate is pretty challenging. It might be too complex to get across in the time available. It might be that the prospect simply isn’t ready to buy. It could be that there are multiple logical marketing steps between first contact and first meeting. But many campaigns try to “close” the lead in just one step.
If the proposition itself is not compelling, or too complex to communicate, or if the prospect needs to be taken on a journey or to learn something before they will progress into a lead, you need to make the next step compelling instead.
Your job is to open the door and start a dialogue: entice the person to an event, get a prospect will take a call – not to sell the entire solution in one fell swoop.
Map the journey you need to take people on, and sell the next step. If you really want someone to take a meeting, consider what your proposition for the meeting needs to be. Have you information they would like? If you want them to attend an event, consider what they want to hear, look at what information you could provide that might make their job easier? (see what Egg’s CIO said about why this works.) Then consider what will happen after the event, what will they need to hear or see then to take them to the next step?
Nurture those who are a fit for your solution regardless of their timing to buy. As their knowledge of you and your propositions grows, you build credibility and access. Meaning that when the time is right for them, you are perfectly positioned.
The third and final post in this series will be available shortly, and features a number of ways you can tackle the creation of a compelling theme for your campaign. Get it as soon as it’s published by signing up to this blog’s RSS feed or subscribing to email alerts. Part one of this series on proposition development is here.
The Sunday Times featured this article on the formation of smart meter bidding consortiums.
The government wants every home to have a smart meter by 2010 (which wil monitor electricity use digitally, as well as allow two-way communication between supplier and home) and the Sunday Times claims that O2, Vodafone, BT, Logica, Accenture and Capgemini are all limbering up.
Ofgem is likely to run the tender, claims the paper, with the contract running from 2010 to 2020.
Here’s a snapshot of the programmes we predict a major focus on for next year – an insight into what the best marketing departments will be doing in 2009.
4 key strands are emerging – a spotlight on data, gaining access at the right level, enhancing credibility and building programmes that appreciate timing and lead nurturing.
Spotlight on data
1. Marketing teams will focus on building solid data platforms to increase effectiveness and control spend. The data sets they need to work on will take two forms – intelligence on customers (what they are interested in and how they are responding) and quality of contact data.
2. Joint planning with sales (from account planning to CRM implementation) – marketing teams will be creating a single go-to-market strategy for key clients and segments with their sales counterparts.
3. Key account monitoring – in an increasingly unpredictable environment those first to respond to opportunities will have the upper hand. Marketers are increasingly looking to us to monitor activity within key accounts and suggest appropriate actions to capitalise on any changes.
Building access at the right level
1. Marketers are looking to improve the access they have at the right levels within the target organisations, as research shows that a focus on the C-level alone omits a broad sweep of other decision-makers. From partnering with influential network-owners through to building.
2. Access is gained through a bargaining process – marketers need to work out how to give value through their communications and positioning, and work out how they want that to be reciprocated by the target. Good programmes will attract the right people and build strong relationships that can be further leveraged through networking.
Enhancing credibility
1. Companies must position well next year to attract the right opportunities (without wasting money chasing the wrong ones. ) Authoritative comment will be critical to this – in 2009 marcomms ‘copy’ will move up several gears in terms of seniority and knowledge, becoming market comment. If something is perceived as “marketing” by the recipient then it’s probably failed – successful marcomms in this environment will feel like part of a good conversation.
2. There will be an increasing use of the semantic web to understand and extend networks. People are publishing information about themselves, what they want and what they are interested in more than ever before. Programmes are being built that capitalise on that “interested market” information.
Understanding timing
1. The emergence of continuous customer contact programmes that tie the three elements of the above together with characterise 2009. These lead generation “engines” will focus spend on enhancing reputation and favourability with only those customers most likely to buy, whilst appreciating that not all will be immediately ready to do so.
2. Communications will focus on selling the next step, not just the end product. Ongoing comms programmes will drip feed useful information at the right time whilst supporting the joint lead nurturing efforts of sales and marketing.
The CIO Executive Council has released its CIO starter kit. In terms of getting inside a CIO’s head and understanding their and how they work, it’s a fantastic resource.
The kit is made up of 20 documents created by leading CIOs, and features a research report on best practices, a guide on how to map IT to business drivers and what a CIO should do in their first 90 days.
Here we’ve provided a simple question set which will help guide your proposition development when creating campaigns for complex B2B offerings. This is the first in a three-part post.
What is a proposition? In basic terms, it’s how we communicate what benefits your customer gets for the money they pay you. It normally involves a USP (unique selling point) which is the strongest and most differentiating factor in your favour. But in campaign design we need to take that one step further. i.e. You might be selling consulting services, but how do we package up and take to market exactly what your end purchaser gets? Not just benefits but what the realisation of those benefits means to the person you’re selling to?
The point about a campaign proposition is that, however great your product/service proposition is, it has no intrinsic right to be read. People are bombarded with promises of ROI – it’s not a simple question of beating every other percentage quoted that week.
The campaign proposition is what earns the right for the real proposition to get a hearing.
In attempting this, what’s important is how these resonate with the end purchaser. Finding the likely emotional resonance for the customer’s purchasing decisions is really important. Even when buying decisions are made for “practical” reasons, it will be the way that the buyer felt (or will feel) about that practicality that was important in the decision-making process. It’s about knowing what’s top of the target’s mind – both in terms of challenges and emotions (Challenge: I need a collections solution that costs less to maintain and has the functionality to help us collect more debts. Emotion: I’m worried about all the risk involved in replacing our legacy system).
And we use this to realise that however much more money we’re promising that our collections solution can help them collect (which will be the proposition they use to make the business case), what we need to get across first is that we can take away to risk of migration.
We use some of the following questions to get to the campaign proposition:
• What does the audience need to think about us before they will listen to our proposition?
• What’s the emotional connection between where they are now and the promise of where the proposition will take them? What persuades people to buy in the real world? (If it doesn’t ring true to you, or interest you, it probably won’t to anyone else either.)
• What’s the single part of what we have to offer that is most instantly relevant to them?
• Or is it about offering a safe pair of hands? Telling the sometimes uncomfortable truth? Delivering consistent innovation?
• The proposition should have defined their needs, but what emotion sits behind these? How are we going to get them emotionally bought into it?
• Are there any fundamental misconceptions about the company, product, service, industry or area that we need to address?
• What do we need them to think about the client before they will consider the proposition?
• Why is it that the client gets repeat business? What does the customer need to see above and beyond a physical solution?
• What do we offer above and beyond a specific solution and the associated benefits? Could be guidance, thought leadership, practicality, understanding of their business…
• What are competitors doing that gives them an edge in the relationship with prospects?
• What are the most challenging bottlenecks between awareness and sale?
• What are the most interesting anecdotes, “factoids” or war stories that have come out during the research and workshops?
• What’s the problem the target audience is grappling with on its way into work each day?
Remember, you are trying to build a position here for the company’s product or service around positive and engaging content. Simpler (although not necessarily shorter) is often better in this environment. Keep boiling down the proposition until you are left with something compelling, interesting and emotive.
Just because we’ve got their attention doesn’t mean they will rush to make contact and become a sales-ready lead. That’s where the next level of proposition comes in – the proposition that persuades them to take the next realistic action on the path to buying. Look out for the next post on ‘Selling the next step’.
The Economist’s Intelligence Unit has released this report Future Tense: The Global CMO
This is interesting from two perspectives. A glimpse of the global CMO trend will help us understand where all our jobs are going. At the same time, many of us are marketing to these CMOs.
One of the major themes for me was the view that the CMO is increasingly becoming a gatekeeper of critical customer intelligence information. The report suggests that marketing departments will increasingly become integrated marketing & communications organisations: there to gather, develop and use customer information.
The role of how the two-way customer communications now happening as a result of the web is covered, as are the opportunities presented by it.
McKinsey has just published its “Industry trends in the downturn” snapshot, covering predictions for consumer goods, chemicals, technology and steel industries.
The outlook for consumer goods is mixed, based on the fact that consumers change their habits and priorities in a recession, rather than making general cuts, McKinsey argues. The key is therefore understanding any category’s likely performance.
The report believes that technology will fare broadly better than in 2001 because IT is already managed more effectively and spending is, if anything, behind the 10 year average.
The chemicals prediction is focused on geographic moves; the report highlighting that lower cost Chinese and Middle Eastern players could supplant higher cost, established businesses.
McKinsey predicts that the steel industry is likely to recover, evidencing the infrastructure growth in India, China and the Middle East.
McKinsey requires registration (free) for this article.
I’d highly recommend reading this superb FT article which analyses the year to come from a CIO perspective. In particular, this quote from Ian Campbell, of British Energy and chairman of the UK-based Corporate IT Forum, is really enlightening.
He says his priorities are: “first, year-on-year savings on business-as-usual expenditure – “The more companies just ask for a ‘flat’ 10 per cent across all areas, you know there is a general squeeze,” he says.
“Second, he says, are service efficiencies which demonstrate IT is providing exceptional value for money, and third, continued outsourcing and “managed service” activity.
“He argues for the need to ensure there is no wasted investment or poor cost control: these will be far more noticeable in a downturn and quickly show up poor management.
“He says there is already a greater focus on return on investment, with payback expected even more quickly. Interest in “technology” projects such as Vista or Services Oriented Architecture has also dwindled. Software as a Service (SaaS) has its supporters but he adds: “There is little in the way of proper commercial offerings, so we have not seen many massive deals or a shift in the market.”
An enlightening podcast discussion on what effect the regulation of the financial services industry will have was released yesterday by Finextra, featuring a discussion between Michael Dawson of Promontory, (an ex-regulator himself) and Keith Saxton, Global Director of Financial Markets of IBM.
Here are some of the highlights and our conclusions on them:
The Marketing Practice builds lead generation and sales enablement programmes for clients including Fujitsu, Microsoft, Oracle and Chordiant.
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